ARGENTINA I

ARGENTINA-I WHEREAS the daily El Liberal in Santiago del Estero province has reported a range of sinister attacks that affected the paper’s operations WHEREAS the series of attacks, reported by the daily to different organizations, include a projectile launched against its building and tapping of the paper’s telephone lines because of its reporting on a political espionage network at the service of the provincial government as well as the defamation, surveillance and persecution of journalists WHEREAS the daily considers the shutting down of sources of information from the government, including the police, thus reducing official news to reports sent by the Press Secretary; the end of placement of official advertisement in a clearly discriminatory way; and a series of lawsuits as a form of pressure aimed at silencing criticism and even getting the paper to close WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states that, “freedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and im¬punity for perpetrators; such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly” THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to ask the president of the republic to call on the special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Organization of American States to investigate the attacks against El Liberal to convey to the governor of Santiago del Estero province, Carlos Juárez, the serious concern that this grave situation has generated in the hemisphere’s press to reiterate our request that these events be investigated, and to ask for a speedy normalization of the conditions required for the practice of press freedom in that province to ask the local judiciary to grant the safeguards established in the Constitution and protect the right to information.