Argentina

The threat to press freedom is evidenced by the closing of newspapers and magazines throughout the country because of the severe economic crisis, which has caused a drop in sales, a decrease in advertising and suffocating high taxes. On February 9, the Asociación de Diarios Entrerrianos in Entre Ríos declared an emergency. Representatives of media outlets met in Villaguay to analyze the problems stemming from the increase of costs, which have surpassed the rise in the dollar, and the impossibility of passing on the increase of raising the cover price or advertising rates. On February 19 the publishers submitted a document to President Eduardo Duhalde, requesting, among other things: his support for elimination of all tariffs on the import of supplies and capital goods for the written press; access to special lines of credit to reestablish sources of work; restoration of tax breaks and immediate redemption of Federal Bonds in the province. Media organizations met with President Duhalde and Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna to present two bills proposing to lower the VAT for journalistic organization and a payment arrangement for tax debts. The bills have not yet been discussed. However, another bill has been partially approved that would exempt advertising space and those who are part of this chain from the VAT and decrease the VAT for the purchase of newsprint by 50%. On February 11, journalist and university professor Fernando Ruiz Parra was detained incommunicado for three days in Cuba. Ruiz Parra was in Cuba to research independent journalism there. He was detained and deported on charges that he only had a tourist visa instead of a special visa required by Cuban authorities. Olga Riutort, the wife of the governor of Córdoba and former official of his administration, sued the daily La Voz del Interior of Córdoba for damages. She also brought a criminal charge against its reporter, Sergio Carreras, alleging that he had made a false and malicious report about her. Olga Riutort, who was general secretary of the province’s government, sued the paper for 500,000 pesos in punitive damages. Last July La Voz del Interior published a report about secret steps taken by Riutort to transfer 50 million pesos (then worth $50 million) from Chile in Lecor bonds. The paper’s investigation disclosed details of the trip, confirmed by various sources, at a time residents of Córdoba did not know that type of currency would be put into circulation. According to the newspaper, it had confirmed that Riutort hired a charter flight to Chile, and when she was preparing to leave the airport in Santiago on November 3, 2001, Chilean authorities stopped her because she had not declared what she was taking: 10 packages with 100,000 Series E Lecor bonds each. Riutort’s lawyer said the journalist had “reported falsely and maliciously what he knew not to be historic truth” and indulged in a “political consideration” in an effort to show that Riutort was the new Amira Yoma. He was referring to an official of Carlos Menem’s government accused of transporting securities abroad in a diplomatic pouch. On March 6, Federal Judge Jorge Ballestero, issued an international detention order against journalist Olga Wornat. The journalist, who lives in Mexico, was ordered to testify in a case brought against her by Senator Eduardo Menem because of the publication of Wornat’s book called Menem, la vida privada.