ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA WHEREAS a year and 10 months have passed since the murder of news photographer Jose Luis Cabezas, the crime continues unsolved the Senate has before it a bill to amend provisions in the Penal Code to make the dissemination of material obtained through the use of hidden microphones and/or television cameras a punishable offense the dissemination of such material is in the public interest and/or exposes unlawful conduct by government officials and private individuals and helps bring about punishment for corruption and restoration of the people's trust in government institutions Supreme Court rulings have given currency once more to the "right of reply" as being held to be mandatory, which does great damage to freedom of expression the lack of consistency in rulings by certain judges is conducive to the conviction and sentencing of journalists and news media in ways that are contrary to the letter and spirit of Article 14 of the Constitution the Labor Ministry called on the daily El Liberal of Santiago del Estero to sell copies of the newspaper only through an exclusive and monopolistic labor union and threatened to penalize it if it failed to do so THE IAPA GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLVES to express to the Argentine president and judiciary the Association's concern that the Cabezas murder case continues to be unsolved to call on the national senators to exclude from the reform of the Penal Code any provision that makes it a punishable offense to disseminate material obtained with hidden microphones or television cameras about topics of public interest or show the commission of unlawful acts to request that the judiciary reject the controversial "right of reply," which harms freedom of expression to urge the judiciary to adopt similar and clear guidelines for court rulings involving journalists and news media that are based on the provisions contained in Article 14 of the Constitution to ask the Argentine president to veto the Labor Ministry's document number 60,220/93 of October 16,1998, which prevents the daily El Liberal from circulating freely in clear and explicit violation of the Argentine constitution and inter-American agreements.