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Freedom of Expression

Argentina

Threats and Aggression

 

22.        In 2002, the Office of the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression received approximately 30 alerts of threats to and aggression against journalists.  The majority of these cases took place in provincial towns and cities and many of them were related to media coverage of public protests and demonstrations in public spaces.[1]

 

23.        In 2002, journalist Carla Britos, editor of the newspaper La Tapa, in Guernica, in the province of Buenos Aires, was subjected to intense harassment as a result of reports carried by her newspaper.  In June, she was watched and followed by a car that was parked at the door of her house.  On three occasions, the driver of this car threatened her with death for having published in La Tapa reports concerning irregularities committed by the former mayor.  She was also threatened by telephone and by electronic mail.[2]

 

24.        In January 2002, journalist Martín Oeschger of FM Paraná Radio San Javier in Capitán Bermúdez was stopped by a car and shot at by five individuals inside.  As a result of this, the Secretary General of the Municipal Workers Union of Capitán Bermúdez, Jesús Monzón, was detained for a few days.  Previously, the same Monzón had damaged the radio station in which Oeschger was working and had also threatened him with death.  In previous years, shots were fired at the journalist's house and he suffered death threats and physical assaults.[3]

 

25.        On April 1, journalist Maria Mercedes Vásquez of LT7 Radio Corrrientes was struck in the face a week after accusing some members of the New Party (Partido Nuevo) of smuggling weapons into the country.  In February, Vasquez and her husband Silvio Valenzuela, also a journalist for LT7 Radio Corrientes, were accused of defamation by Manuel Sussini, Senator and member of the Autonomist Party (Partido Autonomista), because of a news broadcast in which he was linked to acts of corruption.  A few months ago, in October 2002, unknown persons threw a Molotov cocktail at the journalist’s house, presumably in reprisal for having broadcast a recording of telephone conversations that implicated national legislators, the President of the Upper Court of Justice in Corrientes, and various local leaders, in an apparent conspiracy against the Governor Ricardo Colombi.[4]

 

26.        On April 29, 2002, Roberto Mario Petroff of the daily newspaper Tiempo Sur in the province of Chubut, was physically assaulted by unknown persons days after having published a piece on incidents that occurred during street protests.  According to the Santa Cruz Press Union, journalists and photographers are routinely threatened in this province.[5]

 

27.        Information has also been received about assaults on journalists and television reporters by supporters of former president Carlos Menem.  On May 3, 2002, guards of the former president cornered journalist Daniel Malnatti, of the program Caiga quien Caiga, in the province of Tucumán, beat him, and threatened him with firearms.  On June 23, 2002, journalists of the Todos Noticias channel and a photographer for the newspaper Clarín were attacked by a group of individuals whose faces were covered, while the reporters were covering a demonstration of neighborhood assemblies protesting against the former President.  On September 26, 2002, Radio Ciudad reporter Zaida Pedroso and two other journalists for FM Metro and Clarín were insulted, physically assaulted, and prevented from doing their work by a group of individuals who were in control of the location.  On September 30, 2002, once again, journalists and television reporters covering the scene as Menem arrived to appear in court were attacked.  The frequency of these attacks on the work of the press reflects the intolerance and use of violence by some political circles in response to the claims and demonstrations of citizens.  In November 2002, journalists from Canal 13 and the cable channel Todo Noticias of Buenos Aires were physically assaulted by supporters of former president Menem during a campaign meeting.  According to information received by the Special Rapporteur, the organizers refused without explanation to allow them in to cover the event and only one television station was allowed access.[6]

 

28.        On July 7, 2002, Alberto Lamberti, a town councilor in Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut, declared that "he would make a José Luis Cabezas (a photographer who was murdered in January 1997) of every man in the local press, because they do not write about what he thinks is the news.”  These remarks triggered an irate response from local journalists’ associations, which construed them as intimidation.  Hours later, the councilor said he had only been joking.  Notwithstanding this clarification, the Chubut Union of Local Press Workers demanded that Lamberti should be removed from his post.[7]

 

29.        In September 2002, a federal judge ordered the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) to draw up a list of all the incoming and outgoing calls on the telephone lines of journalist Thomas Catan, Financial Times correspondent in Argentina, in connection with an investigation into corruption in the Senate.  In August, the journalist had published an article on a denunciation filed by a group of foreign bankers with the embassies of Great Britain and the United States regarding alleged requests for bribes by Argentine legislators.  After being summonsed on September 17, the journalist had testified in court and provided the information requested but refrained from identifying his sources.  In light of the decision handed down by the federal judge, the journalist appealed for protection (amparo) from the Federal Chamber in order to prevent the decision from being implemented.  The brief presented by the journalist argues that the judge’s order violated the constitutional protection of the sources of information established in Article 43 and 18 of the National Constitution, which guarantees the privacy of the home, of correspondence, and of private papers of individuals.  Finally, the Federal Chamber annulled the judge’s decision and ordered the destruction of the lists of telephone numbers in the presence of the journalist and his lawyers.

 

30.        In October 2002, unidentified persons threw an explosive into the home of journalist María Mercedes Vásquez, in the city of Corrientes, causing material damage to her home.  The journalist reported the incident to authorities and was granted police protection.  Vásquez works on the En el Aire program of Radio Corrientes in which some days before the attack she had broadcast recordings of telephone calls that compromised various local officials.  The journalist had previously suffered other attempts to intimidate her because of her journalistic work.  Between February and March 2002, a provincial senator requested her arrest and that of her colleague Silvio Valenzuela for insulting a public official (desacato), a legal provision still in effect in the provincial constitution.  Both journalists had broadcast information about the alleged taking of bribes by provincial legislators.  Vásquez presented a petition of habeas corpus to the court, which determined that Article 8 of the Provincial Constitution invoked by the Senator was unconstitutional.  Days later, the journalist received telephone threats in her house and at the radio.  One of the calls was taken by her daughter to whom the callers explained how they were going to kill her mother.  In another of the calls they said, “You’re going to end up like Cabezas (an Argentine photographer murdered in January 1997) with six shots in your head and inside a trunk.”  On April 1, María Mercedes Vásquez was attacked in the street by two individuals who threatened her and struck her in the face.  The journalist immediately made a statement to the authorities and was assigned a police guard.[8]

 

31.        On October 26, 2002, police agents fired rubber bullets at journalists Alberto Recanatini Méndez and Tomás Eliaschev from the Agency Indymedia Argentina.  The journalists were covering a demonstration in front of the National Congress and at the moment of the assault were filming the police taking aim at the balconies of a building from where a man had thrown a flowerpot at them.  The police fired notwithstanding the fact that the two journalists were identified as members of the press and carried their equipment.  Recanatini was hit in the head and the other on the elbow.[9]

 

32.        On November 13, 2002, members of the program Telenoche Investiga of Canal 13 of Buenos Aires denounced a series of acts of intimidation against them.  The intimidation began after the program broadcast a series of reports looking into cases of abuse of minors by a Roman Catholic priest in a charitable institution.  During one of the broadcasts, the presenters informed the audience that members of the program were being followed and subjected to intimidatory acts, and other pressures.  The journalists said they did not want to go into greater detail out of fear for their personal safety.[10]

 

33.        On November 19, at a political party gathering, a group of supporters of former president Carlos Menem punched and kicked journalist Martín Cicioli, producer Nicolás Chausovsky, and television cameraman Sergio Di Nápoli of the Kaos en la Ciudad program transmitted by Channel 13 in Buenos Aires.  While the journalists were waiting behind a barrier, a group of supporters of the former president approached the members of the press and began insulting, then kicking and punching them.  Miguel Santiago, producer of the cable channel, Todo Noticias (TN), and his companion Ignacio Marcalain, were also attacked.

 

34.        On November 26, 2002, one of the guards protecting journalist Miguel Bonasso was shot at in the door of Bonasso’s home by an unknown group.  The journalist attributed the attack to the investigation that he was carrying out into the events of December 23, 2001 in Argentina after the fall of President Fernando de la Rúa.  Bonasso declared in a television program that the intention of the attack had been to intimidate him so as to prevent him from publishing his investigations.[11]

 

Others

 

35.        The Office of the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression received information that the government of Neuquen had ordered the cancellation of all official advertising in the newspaper Río Negro after it had published reports on influence peddling and other illicit pressure being exerted on local legislators.  It should be recalled in this regard that Principle 13 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the IACHR establishes that “the exercise of power and the use of public funds by the state, the granting of customs duty privileges, the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising and government loans, the concession of radio and television broadcast frequencies, among others, with the intent to put pressure on and punish or reward and provide privileges to social communicators and communications media because of the opinions they express threaten freedom of expression, and must be explicitly prohibited by law.”[12]  The Office of the Special Rapporteur will continue to monitor developments in the aforementioned case of the newspaper Rio Negro.

 

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