During this period, no serious incidents affecting freedom of the press were recorded. There are also no legal restrictions attacking the right to information or limiting the activities of the media and journalists.
Regarding the 2024 general elections, the political climate is intensifying between the parties of the Republican Coalition currently in government and the opposition parties that comprise the Broad Front.
In a Senate review on accountability policies, the ruling party seeks to add print media to a regime of exemptions that currently includes broadcasting and television companies to offer tax incentives to media such as El País, the weeklies Búsqueda, Brecha, Voces, Caras y Caretas, Crónica, and other publications distributed in the interior of the country.
In August, journalists from the news programs Telenoche, from Channel 4, and Subrayado, from Channel 10, were threatened in retaliation for their coverage of the Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, who remains at large. The journalists received the warning via WhatsApp: "Hello. If you continue to write articles about me, there will be consequences. I am Marset," accompanied by a photo with 24 pistol magazines. The same threats were made against journalists in Bolivia.
The "Marset" case has also triggered a political crisis with the resignation of two ministers and other senior officials. The public has been widely informed about the issue and there have been no allegations that journalistic activity has been curtailed.
The case of the attempted intimidation - "clandestine surveillance", "tracking", "ambush and persecution" - denounced to IAPA a year ago by journalist Alfonso Lessa, as a result of his investigation related to "arms trafficking" and with controversial political implications that have not been definitively clarified, is still pending.
The IAPA took an interest in the matter before the Attorney General's Office and proceedings were carried out. But there is no news on the outcome of the investigations. The journalist has reiterated his complaints to the IAPA. He says he feels "unprotected", especially when according to his own investigations he has found "contradictions and omissions" in the file of the Prosecutor's Office, with information he obtained from the Ministries of Defense and Interior, and from witnesses and protagonists of the events, including police officers".
