Latinamerican media blasts populist regimes for trying to gag press critics

Populist leaders in Latin America increasingly use legal and political means to silence critics in the media, according to Enrique Santos Calderón, president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). Tactics include revoking broadcast licenses, fostering hostility toward journalists, and giving a free hand to government supporters who have attacked broadcast stations, newsrooms and printing plants.

We are extremely concerned at the growing level in recent weeks of harassment and violence in various countries," Calderón said at IAPA's annual meeting in Buenos Aires. "Democratic systems require a free and unfettered press."

In Argentina, editors are criticizing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's new decree ordering newspapers and magazines to be sold exclusively in union-run newsstands. Editors fear this will enable the government to prevent distribution of newspapers that do not follow the ruling party's line by enlisting pro-government unions to shut them down.

"From now on the sale of newspapers will be the only commercial activity regulated by the state," said Gregorio Badeni, a constitutional law expert in Buenos Aires. "It is obvious that they aim to curtail the free development of the newspaper business, because they're putting conditions on the sale of their products."

Fernández de Kirchner did not respond to an invitation to speak at IAPA's meeting. As she signed her decree this past week, the head of Argentina's powerful truckers union, Hugo Moyano, sent members to block distribution of Clarín, La Nación, Perfil and other newspapers, demanding that the papers' drivers be represented by the union.

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