Argentina

WHEREAS public information continues to be manipulated selectively in Argentina and as private property, and that it is used to discriminate against media and journalists, thus interfering with their professional work WHEREAS there continues to be a dearth of press conferences, thus exempting government officials from public scrutiny and permiting them to communicate only those messages of their interest, creating a situation that violates society’s right to information and which has motivated a firm call from a robust group of journalists from different media and orientations; WHEREAS diverse offices of the Argentine government exercise their state power over the media in a discriminatory manner, applying regulations and administrative rules in a selective way, either sanctioning or benefiting the media in accordance with their editorial line; WHEREAS in Argentina a law has been passed that gives the Executive Branch control over the production, import, and, in general, the supply of newsprint, which empowers the discretionary position of the state in manipulating this key supply; WHEREAS in recent months acts of aggression against journalists on the part of high government officials has multiplied and worsened in Argentina, including unmeasured accusations that they are destabilizers, Mafiosi or anti-Semites. WHEREAS this climate of harassment coming from political power reverberates in other spheres, such as local governments or sympathetic groups, even to the point of generating occurrences of physical violence; WHEREAS the same attitude is reflected in the government media, where there are systematic cycles dedicated to selective stigmatization and hostility toward those media and journalists who carry out their work at the margin of official guidance WHEREAS Principle 1 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states: “No people or society can be free without freedom of expression and of the press. The exercise of this freedom is not something authorities grant; it is an inalienable right of the people.” THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to urge that the government not use newsprint as a new tool for indirect censorship, based on the passing of the controversial law that permits the state to control the production and importation of this key supply; to exhort the Argentine government to cease its policy of harassment and stigmatization of those media and journalists not aligned with the system of official or para-official communication; to urge public servants and other government officials to abandon their frequent hostility toward editors and journalists, with outbursts that, besides being profoundly offensive, could lead to greater violence on the part of groups sympathetic to the government; to solicit competent authorities to prevent government-controlled media from being utilized as tools of mere propaganda or for the defamation of persons, social groups, or institutions that express points of view different from official ones; to demand that the highest authorities of Argentina foster a climate of tolerance and dialogue with other institutional voices of democracy, among them the press, in order to prevent fear, self-censorship, and absence of debate to continue their dangerous growth in the country. to demand that state offices avoid the abusive and discriminatory application of rules, regulations, and administrative resolutions against the media in reprisal for their journalistic work.