Argentina II

WHEREAS four years after enactment of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law, known as the media law, there has been growing official control of news media WHEREAS in a recent ruling the Supreme Court said that the application of said law could amount to an indirect violation of freedom of expression if there do not exist public policies of transparency regarding official advertising, if from the government news media are subsidized, if publicly-owned media are put at the service of government interests or if the one in charge of applying the law is not a technical or independent body WHEREAS far from complying with those standards of application of the law, from the very government they are being infringed WHEREAS government-owned media in Argentina are used as partisan media, where only government supporting voices are given space WHEREAS Principle 6 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states: “The media and journalists should neither be discriminated against nor favored because of what they write or say” THE IAPA RESOLVES to reject selective application, as a system of rewards and punishments, of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law and other laws by officials involved to call on the Executive Branch of Government for compliance with the conditions set in the ruling of the Supreme Court to ask the Judicial Branch of Government and the Legislative Branch of Government to take the measures to ensure compliance with the Audiovisual Communication Services Law and prevent these kinds of indirect restrictions of freedom of expression.