International concern over freedom of expression in Argentina

The IACHR's recent call for a hearing on the deterioration of freedom of expression in the country this year once again sets a precedent in a long struggle for human rights.

Argentina is at the center of international attention because of the delicate situation facing freedom of expression in the country. The recent call by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for a hearing to provide explanations on the matter puts the spotlight back on a debate that has been going on in the country for years. Meanwhile, the intensification of attacks on journalists, media outlets and various organizations that dissent from the government is raising a new alarm. 

Indeed, the IACHR's request refers to the "sustained and alarming deterioration" of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Argentina. In its statement, the Commission invites the Argentine State to devise measures to steer this situation toward a better scenario, and to that end it has called a hearing for November 19. The many requests from human rights organizations and civil society associations were taken up by Amnesty International, which included the issue on its agenda for November, within the framework of the IACHR's 194th Period of Sessions.

Alongside Amnesty, some twenty human rights organizations and journalism and media associations have joined the list. They include the Association of Argentine Photojournalists (ARGRA), the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA), the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Poder Ciudadano Foundation and Fundar, among others. Numerous legal figures and constitutional scholars also stand out among the signatories. 

Although discussions around freedom of expression and of the press have a long history of significant events in Argentina, the administration of current President Javier Milei has opened a new cycle of concern. This is illustrated by events ranging from the dismantling of public media such as the state news agency Télam, to the president's many public insults against Argentine journalists, to the shooting of photojournalist Pablo Grillo by a member of the National Gendarmerie. This last episode set off a strong alarm in public opinion because of the context and the brutality with which it was carried out.   

Lawsuits against journalists, threats and "stigmatizing discourse" from within the government itself add to the series of elements that Amnesty International highlighted in this new complaint before the IACHR.

"Nothing to celebrate: a Journalists' Day without freedom of expression" was the title the Buenos Aires Press Union (SIPREBA) already used in 2024 for its statement on Journalists' Day in Argentina. In the text, the union noted that the Argentine State itself had signed a UNESCO declaration in favor of respect for freedom of expression. According to the document, this gesture was contradicted by the restrictive and repressive policies deployed in just the first months of Javier Milei's government. It details the shutting down of the websites and social media accounts of Radio Nacional and TV Pública, as well as the economic squeeze on nonprofit media through the elimination of official advertising. It also mentions the hollowing out of the National Communications Agency (Enacom), a body originally designed to regulate policies and activities in the field of communications and media. 

What has been noted about Argentina's current political period echoes similar complaints during previous political periods. As early as 2016, at the start of the government of then-President Mauricio Macri, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) produced the report "Freedom of expression: discouraging prospects." It warned about actions such as the downgrading, by decree, of the then Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communication Services (AFSCA). 

This took place in the context of the reformulation of a large part of the provisions of the so-called "Media Law" (Audiovisual Communication Services Law 26,522), aimed at guaranteeing media pluralism. According to the report, this type of legal change manifested itself in cases such as the persecution and confiscation of the alternative outlet Antena Negra TV. Further back in time, during the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the institutional and ideological conflicts between the ruling party and the Clarín media group were widely known.  

Freedom of expression: a long Argentine struggle

These conflicts and episodes are not new. Censorship and persecution of freedom of expression and of the press are among the most prominent features of Argentina's last dictatorship (1976-1983). From the surveillance of culture through the government's Literary Advisor (responsible for checking all television scripts before broadcast), to the control exercised by the then Federal Broadcasting Committee (COMFER), to the well-known clandestine actions of state terrorism, which operated through the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of journalists and political activists across the country.

Once democratic order was restored, this precedent became a fundamental cornerstone of the struggle for human rights, with freedom of expression as one of its central pillars. Moreover, during the democratic period itself there were milestones that marked the demands of civil society, culture and the media on this issue. Cases such as the request for prior censorship of the program of the well-known political humorist Mauricio "Tato" Bores by Judge María Servini de Cubría in 1992 was one of them. Added to this is the murder of photojournalist José Luis Cabezas, who was found dead after photographing businessman Alfredo Yabrán, at the time the subject of a high-profile judicial investigation into corruption. The "Cabezas case" became one of the foremost symbols of the struggle for freedom of expression in Argentina.