MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine media reacts to government attacks on Clarin

The Argentine association of newspapers, Adepa, publicly expressed concern about attacks from “government and government related sectors” against the Argentine press in general and particularly against editors and journalists from Clarín.

In a communiqué released on Wednesday the organization which represents Argentine newspapers called on the government and the Judiciary branch for "an active and unrenounceable commitment into the investigation and sanctioning of those responsible". Clarín published in Buenos Aires, is the Argentine newspaper with the largest circulation and belongs to a media group that includes radio and television stations. The release follows claims that director Ernestina Herrera de Noble and one of the owners of the company Hector Magneto which publishes Clarín had received threats "Harassment and stigmatization are reiterated in the attitude of the political power towards the press and other sectors of society, leaving aside dialogue and debate as a tool of social understanding", adds the release. Adepa over again warns about the dangers involved in "this confrontation climate nourished by entities close to power" and insisted that government officials and the courts investigate the facts. Clarin points out that in the last few days an e-mail was circulated with the message: "Magneto and Noble, stop pestering with the people, this is a warning", to which were attached family pictures most certainly "obtained through computer espionage". The e-mail apparently was signed by a youth grouping from the ruling Justicialista party named "La Campora" which happens to the led by Maximo Kirchner, son of former president Nestor Kirchner and President Cristina Fernandez. Adepa claims this is clearly an operation "which has all the makings of intelligence services or groups capable of hacking computers or portals", and have surfaced when the government is repeatedly attacking Clarin "in the context of a harassment policy against the independent media".