Argentine President Milei Restricts Journalists’ Access to Information: ACERA
The text reads, “Threats against the press are threats against democracy.” X/ @EmbCanArgentina
March 11, 2025 Hour: 10:43 am
Foreign correspondents consider that his administration violate citizens’ right to receive independent information.
On Tuesday, the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the Argentine Republic (ACERA) denounced obstacles to access to official information and the “deterioration of conditions for journalistic coverage” since Javier Milei took office as president in December 2023.
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ACERA highlights that among the examples of “violations of the right to information” are the recent restrictions on the accreditation of photojournalists during the opening of the ordinary sessions of Congress, which Milei led on March 1.
It also refers to “extra security measures that, given the increasingly violent climate, many journalists are forced to take in order to do their jobs when covering protests, marches, and mobilizations by Argentine civil society,” including the use of bulletproof vests and helmets due to “the actions of the police under the authority of the national government.”
ACERA also points out that “President Javier Milei has not held a single press conference since taking office fourteen months ago,” which “results in the president’s communication with foreign media being extremely selective, based on political criteria and arbitrary conditions imposed by the Presidency.”
The only communication between Milei and his ministers with international media is limited to a regular press briefing by presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni, who recently announced “an imminent change in the format of these sessions, with a new protocol for selecting those who will be accredited in the Presidential press room.”
Additionally, the press room will have a “mute button” that will be activated “to prevent follow-up questions from journalists or to silence interventions that are not to their liking,” ACERA denounced, days after this announcement was made by Adorni during a live press conference.
The Association of Foreign Correspondents considers that these actions “violate citizens’ right to receive independent information and the guarantees journalists need to carry out their work.” The measures adopted by the government also represent an “assault on freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to information, and respect for professional journalistic work.”
“The existing limitations on journalistic activity are a priority issue” for ACERA, the organization states, explaining that its goal is to support “the free access of foreign correspondents to sources of information.”
The organization explains that its mission, after 40 years of existence in Argentina, is “to promote freedom in the practice of journalism and to protect it from all forms of coercion, interference, aggression, discrimination, or direct or indirect obstacles.”
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE