Argentina

Authorities were searching for information on computers, thumb drives, and other journalistic materials related to recordings of telephone calls involving businessman Juan Ignacio Suris, who has been imprisoned on charges of money laundering and ties to drug trafficking.

Martín Sabbatella, president of the Audiovisual Communication Services Federal Authority, announced that the government was rejecting Grupo Clarín’s own restructuring plan and that he would use his authority to break it up.

A judge has prohibited the Buenos Aires magazine Noticias, from publishing statements by Diego Maradona’s ex-wife about his private life. The ban also applies to “all public news media”.

The Inter American Press Association is supporting a public awareness campaign launched by the Association of Argentine Press Entities (ADEPA) for Argentina’s authorities to ensure the safety and protection of journalists.

Freelance photographer Brian Palacio was detained and beaten by gendarmes in Buenos Aires province while covering a protest against ongoing power cuts.

The Foro de Periodismo Argentino condemns the violent attacks and threats against members of a Todo Noticias (TN) team, who were conducting an interview on 31 December 2013 with the head of the Argentinian Federal Revenue Administration, Ricardo Echegaray, in the Río de Janeiro, Brazil international airport.

Argentine authorities should immediately release a journalist who has been detained for more than a week and accused of sedition, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In a recent Inter-American Court of Human Rights decision, involving Carlos and Pablo Mémoli, Argentine publishers of the small newspaper La Libertad, the court decided for the first time that a criminal sanction for defamation didn’t affect freedom of expression as established in Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

The Inter American Press Association expressed concern at the belittling of Ecuadorean and Argentine journalists by officials in their respective countries after they last week denounced abuses of press freedom to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The Declaration of Chapultepec, a document promoting the applicability of journalistic values in the Western Hemisphere, has been signed by 61 presidents of countries in the Americas since its promulgation on 11 March 1994.

A Supreme Court decision has declared a 2009 media law constitutional, meaning that media conglomerate Grupo Clarín must divest itself of a large portion of its media holdings.

In Argentina, a government database holding the pictures and fingerprints of its citizens will soon allow officials to identify people based on their DNA and iris information.

Join the Foro de Periodismo Argentino in calling on candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives to uphold four basic concepts that make free expression possible in a democracy.

About a dozen armed members of the national border guard raided the offices of magazine La Garganta Poderosa and seized newsroom equipment without a warrant or explanation.

On the morning of 13 September 2013, journalist Daniel Ortigoza was assaulted and threatened by the local mayor Alfredo Gruber and a group of protesters while he covered a murder trial in Misiones province.

Journalist Luis Orlando Fernández told FOPEA that an attack on his house was probably linked to his assisting a news crew that was in the area doing a report on water shortages in Formosa province.