Freedom of Expression

Argentina

Aggression and Threats

1.                  On April 6, 2001, photographer Rolando Andrade of the Argentine daily La Nación was attacked by two bodyguards in the employ of Miguel Etchecolatz, who had served as the chief of police in Buenos Aires under Argentina’s last military dictatorship.  The attack took place while Andrade was covering Etchecolatz’s public trial for acts of intimidation.  According to the reports received, the police reacted with indifference to the assault on the photographer.[1]

2.                  During 2001, the Rapporteur’s office was also told of several incidents involving Río Negro (a daily from Río Negro province) and its reporters, arising from its allegations of irregularities inside the provincial government.  Among the incidents reported was a death threat made in early April 2001 against Jorge Gadano, the paper’s correspondent in Neuquén, because of his investigations into irregularities in the handling of public funds.[2]

3.                  On May 8, 2001, an unidentified person entered the premises of the FM Inolvidable radio station in the city of Caleta Oliva, Santa Cruz, Argentina, and set fire to its transmitters.  The station’s owner, Antonio Barría, reported that this was the fourth attack it had suffered on account of its journalists’ investigations into vehicle smuggling and drug trafficking at the port of Caleta Oliva.[3]

4.                  On June 22, 2001, Fabián Rubino, a journalist with radio station Mitre, was insulted and assaulted by a federal police officer.  According to the information received, he was covering a demonstration and, when he attempted to enter the area, a police officer denied him access and, after a brief exchange of words, insulted and spat at him.  Seeing Rubino’s confusion, the sergeant pretended to be the injured party and, with help from another officer, handcuffed the journalist for allegedly resisting authority.  A taxi driver came to Rubino’s assistance and got in touch with Radio Mitre.  Because the incident was being broadcast live, the officer relinquished.  In addition, only a few days before, members of the gendarmes had violently attacked local journalists who were covering a protest event in Salta.[4]

5.                  On October 18, 2001, Martín Oeschger from FM Paraná Radio San Javier was attacked by members of the municipal workers’ trade union.  He was beaten and threats were made against his life.  During the night of June 26, 2001, persons unknown sprayed the wall of his daughter’s bedroom with gunfire.  The next day, he received death threats over the telephone.  It is assumed that these attacks were motivated by the reporter’s investigations into corruption within the union.[5]

6.                  In December 2001, facing an outbreak of social unrest that ultimately led to his resignation and the deaths of 29 people, President Fernando de la Rúa declared a state of emergency across the entire country.  The Argentine authorities deployed a police operation to implement the provisions of the state of emergency and halt the demonstrations.  Against this backdrop of social protest, the police attacked and violently repressed the citizenry, including several journalists caught covering the demonstrations that took place in practically all corners of the country.  As a result of the police repression, more than 25 reporters in different cities around the country suffered serious physical attacks, were harassed, or were arbitrarily arrested by the authorities. 

7.                  In this context, press photographer Luis Cetraro from Santa Fe province was injured in the face and chest.  Reporter Gustavo Aguirre and cameraman Roberto Sánchez from Santa Fe’s Canal 13 were also seriously injured.  In La Plata, Buenos Aires, Fabián Rubinacci, a cameraman with América TV and a leader of the Buenos Aires Press Union, was shot in the forehead with a rubber bullet and had to be taken to hospital.   On Sunday, December 23, members of the federal police motorcycle corps physically assaulted Pablo Piovano, a photographer with Página/12, and, when he attempted to photograph them, they also destroyed his camera.  On Thursday, December 20, Claudio Berón, a reporter with the daily La Capital in the city of Rosario, was hit by gunfire while conducting an interview.  With people running around in confusion, Berón received a gunshot wound to the lower back and had to be hospitalized.  At midnight on that same day, Ignacio González Lowy, one of the directors of Radio Méjico and the editor of Voces magazine, and Marcelo Faure, a mobile-unit radio reporter, were arrested in the city of Paraná, Entre Ríos, while covering a demonstration by a group of locals who were demanding food.  Officers from the provincial police’s drug squad arrested the two journalists for “identification” purposes, and they were detained at the city’s 5th Precinct until 4:00 a.m.  After that, they were referred to the records department and to the offices of the drug squad, where their statements were taken.[6]

8.                  In February 2002, the organization PERIODISTAS sent the Argentine government a report detailing the attacks and police repression suffered by journalists covering the social unrest of December 2001.  The organization called on the Argentine State to investigate the incidents and demanded guarantees to protect journalists’ professional activities.  The report was received by Interior Minister Rodolfo Gabrielli, who asked that communications between the state and the organization be kept open in order to channel all allegations of attempts to undermine freedom of expression.[7]

Judicial Actions

9.                  In April 2001 the journalist Marcelo Bonelli was indicted by a federal judge for the crime of violating fiscal secrecy—a charge carrying a prison term of between one month and two years—in a newspaper article.  Bonelli published the results of his inquiries into the personal fortune of Víctor Alderete, a former public official facing some 20 charges of criminal misappropriation of public funds.  In July 2001, the Federal Appeals Court overturned the indictment on the grounds that it represented a disproportionate restriction of free speech.  The judges upheld “the timeliness and relevance to society of the information published; these data were not lacking in public interest, in that they did not merely deal with the personal wealth of a public official who managed a portion of the funds of the national budget, they also involved issues strictly relating to said budget during the years he held office.”[8]

10.              On September 25, 2001, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling against Noticias magazine for damages inflicted on former president Carlos Saúl Menem by publishing details of his private life.  The former Argentine president filed suit, claiming that his privacy had been invaded.  Previously, the magazine’s defense had argued that the information published was of general public interest and had convinced the first-instance court to reject the complaint.  An appeal was filed and, in March 1998, Chamber H of the Civil Appeals Court overturned the first-instance ruling and ordered the magazine to pay compensatory damages totaling 150,000 pesos (at that time exactly equal to USD $150,000).  Although the magazine lodged an appeal, in a September 25 ruling the Supreme Court upheld the judgment.[9] In October 2001, the organization PERIODISTAS, with support from other international organizations active on free-speech issues, filed a complaint with the Commission in connection with this case.

Intimidation

11.              In June 2001 the Special Rapporteur received information about a clause found in the advertising contracts of the Bank of Chubut Province, a public agency, under which the bank could refuse to place advertising in media outlets that had criticized it or had published information deemed negative by its authorities.  This information was revealed by the bank’s director, Jorge Barcia, at a press conference specifically convened to express his annoyance with a local radio station that had broadcast details of alleged irregularities in how the bank was being run.[10]

12.              As in previous years, the Rapporteur’s office has received reports of intimidation and attacks on El Liberal, a daily paper published in Santiago del Estero province.  According to these reports, the paper has suffered repeated harassment and persecution at the hands of the provincial government in response to allegations and critical opinions published on its pages.  It has also been reported that the provincial government no longer buys advertising space in the paper.[11]

 Other

13.              On August 6, 2001, the Citizen Power Foundation filed an amparo suit against the Argentine Senate, demanding the publication of the senators’ sworn statements of their net worth.  The Foundation had asked the Senate’s administrative secretariat for the same information in May of that year, but the request was denied.  The public employees’ ethics law requires that net worth statements be made public.[12]

14.              In October 2001, the Criminal Appeals Court of the city of Buenos Aires overturned the indictment of Juan Manuel Trezza, a political leader who, in October 1999, physically attacked Daniel Tognetti, a journalist on the Caiga quien Caiga television program.  According to the information received, the journalist was attacked at a political gathering.  The incident was recorded by TV cameras and witnesses identified Trezza as the assailant.  This evidence allowed the party leader to be indicted on charges of bodily harm.  Two years after the incident, the 4th Chamber of the Criminal and Correctional Appeals Court of Buenos Aires threw out the evidence and overturned the proceedings.[13]

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