Salió el Reporte de Derechos Humanos del Departamento de Estado. Esto es lo que Condoleezza Rice tiene para decir sobre la libertad de prensa en Argentina:
Freedom of Speech and PressEl informe completo sobre Argentina está aquí.
The constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights.
However, independent media, NGOs, and international organizations complained about the lack of transparency and oversight in the distribution of federal and provincial government spending on advertising in the media.
They also criticized the government's generally aggressive and confrontational attitude toward critical media outlets and journalists, which led to such acts as publicly singling out by name individual reporters for reproach.
The independent media were numerous and active and, despite the government's confrontational attitude, expressed a wide variety of views without restriction.
All print media were owned privately, as were a significant number of radio and television stations.
The federal government owned the Telam wire service, a radio network, and a television station.
A few provincial governments also owned broadcast media.
In February the government signed an agreement with Telesur, a Venezuelan government initiative for a Latin American multinational television service.
The government contributed 20 percent of the capital stock and was initially transmitting Telesur's news programs through the state owned Channel Seven.
Some national and international civil rights organizations, as well as several media and press associations, claimed that national and provincial government agencies interfered with media freedom and editorial independence by directing government advertising for partisan political and personal purposes.
National government spending on advertising increased significantly over the past few years, from approximately $5 million (15.4 million pesos) in 2002 to approximately $47 million (127.5 million pesos) during the year.
This increased spending allowed the survival of a number of media outlets, according to many observers; however, NGOs, press associations, and civil rights advocates contended there was little oversight, few regulations, and that political motives often governed how these funds were allocated to independent media outlets.
At the national level, the majority of government agencies were legally obligated to advertise their activities.
The responsibility for deciding how to allocate funds for such advertising fell to the secretary for media, who answered directly to the chief of cabinet.
Public contracting was done through the government press agency Telam, which, according to critics, followed no established procedure in allocating these funds.
In mid September the national prosecutor general rendered an opinion in a case brought by the leading daily newspaper in Rio Negro, which also serves Neuquen Province, against the Neuquen provincial government.
The newspaper contended that the government of Neuquen had withdrawn its advertising in retaliation for a series of articles in 2001 regarding Neuquen provincial corruption.
Because the government of Neuquen historically had advertised heavily in the paper, critics argued that removal of this source of revenue constituted de facto censorship.
The prosecutor general overruled the paper's petition for the restoration of provincial government advertising, based on the lack of actual regulation governing the issue.
In May Grupo Editorial Perfil, the country's second largest media company, sued the national government for its alleged discriminatory policy in withholding official advertising from some of its magazines and its Sunday newspaper.
The case remained pending at year's end.
Some radio and television programs critical of the government went off the air, which some observers suggested resulted from government pressure.
Two prominent journalists who had regularly published criticisms of the government reported receiving death threats.
On several occasions, senior government officials singled out one of the journalists by name for public criticism for having written pieces critical of the administration.
In 2005, by virtue of a presidential decree, the government extended radio and television broadcast licenses for 10 more years.
Numerous FM radio stations also continued to broadcast with temporary licenses.
In November a public tender, which promised to conclude the licensing process for most of the country's radio and television broadcasting entities, was opened by the Federal Broadcasting Committee, the executive branch agency in charge of regulating broadcast media.
Internet Freedom
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet.
The Association for Argentine Reporter Entities (ADEPA), complained about violation of e mail privacy in a case where transcripts of e-mail exchanges between a reporter and a federal judge investigating an international drug trafficking network appeared in one of the law firms representing the defendants.
ADEPA argued that the intelligence service must have been monitoring the reporter's e mails and had given the e-mails to the defendant's law firm, since the communications were private and had not been made public or shared by either the reporter or the federal judge.
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