MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine gov't not thinking of law against “hate speech”

Cerruti's announcement means there is no consensus yet on an “anti-hate” law similar to the one existing in Venezuela or Germany

Argentina's Presidential Spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti Tuesday denied the administration of President Alberto Fernández was planning to send a bill to Congress to legislate against “hate speech” and insisted there were already enough instruments to deal with the problem.


“There are other tools such as the media law or the penal code,” Cerruti argued after rumors in that regard had mounted following the attack against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK).

National Institute against Discrimination (INADI) Chief Victoria Donda had suggested such a legislative approach, but Cerruti said that the Penal Code “includes incitement to violence and political discrimination” among punishable actions.

“There is no project being analyzed” against hate speech and “there is no need” for one, Cerruti said in a radio interview.

Cerruti also argued that the debate should revolve around “what we are talking about when we talk about hate speeches,” because “it is not that you cannot discuss, debate, investigate, denounce..., the problem is the limits that are crossed.”

“When you have a political party” chairwoman such as Patricia Bullrich of former President Mauricio Macri's PRO who has still not spoken a word against it five days after the attack against CFK, “there we have a more serious problem, we are talking about democratic political parties.”

“We have a problem, if you think you are going to build politically on groups of fanatics, what you are doing is encouraging them,” Cerruti went on. “Hatred needs to be fed, from false news, judiciary persecutions, from the fantasy that we are all millionaires and lazy,” she added.

“Kirchnerism tries to distract and proposes a gag law, with the argument that the blame for everything that happens is on journalism, Justice and the opposition, they seek to control freedom of speech. We will not allow it,” former Buenos Aires PRO Governor and current Congresswoman María Eugenia Vidal said.

PRO in addition to the Civic Radical Union (UCR) of former Presidents Raúl Alfonsín and Fernando de la Rúa and other minor parties form the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC).

According to La Nación and other major Buenos Aires newspapers, the hate speech bill project was on the table during various meetings between President Fernández and some of his aides.