After the announcement by President Javier Milei, who last Friday inaugurated the 142nd period of ordinary sessions in the National Congress and confirmed that he would close INADI and the Argentine public news agency, Telamduring the night of this Sunday The website was disabled and employees reported on social media that the government ordered the newsroom to be fenced.. There is a demonstration called for this Monday at noon.
The assembly of Télam workers had called for a “hug” to the agency, located at Bolívar 531 in the Federal Capital, for this Monday at 12:30. However, on Sunday at midnight they updated the situation and stated that The editorial office was fenced off, attaching images of the operation. “The national government is carrying out one of the worst attacks on freedom of expression in the last 40 years of democracy“, they denounced. Meanwhile, The public media website was also taken down and shows an error with the national coat of arms and the phrase: “Page under reconstruction.”
“From the Buenos Aires Press Union we denounce that the police are surrounding Télam. We, your representatives, the delegates, the internal commission of the union, are here defending this means of communication that It has more than 78 years of history“, they indicated in the video they shared on X (formerly Twitter). “It seems to us that he is a violation of democracy and freedom of expression and, for that reason, we are going to defend it. “Télam defends itself!” added the communicators from the hall of the building.
“We are inside Télam, alerted by colleagues who were at work, who called us because they were beginning to fence the buildings. We are going to defend Télam, public assets and jobs. “It is the worst attack on freedom of expression in democracy,” added another of the journalists. The workers believe that the fencing of both buildings of the public company, the National News and Advertising Agency, is a attempt to repress the “massive hug and prevent access to workers” and they postulated that it is an attack on the right to communication and the right to information of society.
Militants of La Libertad AvanzaFor their part, they also shared images of the police operation, celebrating the closing of the agency. “We eliminated INADI, which in addition to fulfilling the role of thought police had an annual budget of 2.8 billion to maintain paid militants. Along these lines, we are going to close the Télam agency, which has been used in recent decades as Kirchnerist propaganda agency“, the president had argued.
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After the president’s closing announcement, There were several political groups and cultural and human rights leaders who repudiated the initiative. announced by the head of state, and They showed solidarity with the agency workershighlighting “the trajectory and professionalism” of Télam since its founding in 1945.
The national board of directors of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) was among those who expressed their “absolute rejection and repudiation” of the announcement and warned that this measure “puts an emblematic communication company at risk.”
“This initiative, which repeats other sad examples of past governments, with fallacious arguments that only cover up strictly political and economic motivations, puts at risk an emblematic communication company founded 78 years ago—the second most important in the Spanish language and internationally recognized—adding anguish and anxiety in families of its workers,” said the CGT.
There were also statements of repudiation by the national deputy of Unión por la Patria and General Secretary of the Central Workers of Argentina, Hugo Yaskywhich in dialogue with the agency stated that “Télam is an agency with a track record that It has all the correspondent offices in the interior covered, more than 700 employees who operate with an absolutely independent criterionhas the function of informing our population objectively” and “they have done so for 78 years with the different governments.”
The national senator for Jujuy from Unión por la Patria, Carolina Moisés, highlighted from her X account that Télam “has a human and journalistic quality with worldwide recognition“and that together with the national system of public media “is a strength for Argentina and generates enormous benefits.” The legislator of Hacemos Coalión Federal, Mónica Fein, expressed herself in the same direction, joining from X with a categorical “no to closure of Télam” and added: “Let’s defend the right to information and freedom of expression. Solidarity with the workers.”
Through a statement, the Argentine Journalism Forum (Fopea) stressed that Public media “can and should play a decisive role in building more critical and better-educated audiences, with inclusion and balance of voices.”“. Meanwhile, the Press Workers Union (Sitrapren) said in a statement that “Télam is a media that belongs to all Argentines and that occupies a central place as a producer of public and national information that contributes to the democratization of information.”
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The Secretary General of the Autonomous CTA, Hugo Godoy, also expressed his solidarity and stressed that “public media are democratic media that They must be at the service of the popular majorities and be an instrument against the concentration and monopoly of large economic groups. who run Argentina”.
The Secretary General of ATE Nacional, Rodolfo Aguiar, expressed that “the idea of closing the national agency violates freedom of expression, violates the right to information of citizens and The stigmatization of journalists is advancing, which is a major setback for the democratic life of the country.“; while his counterpart from ATE Capital, Daniel Catalano, highlighted that “Télam is information sovereignty and those who guarantee it are its workers.”
“From CTERA we stand in solidarity with the press workers of Télam and we will be with you resisting this attack on freedom of expression. This attack has the main objective of silencing a historical information powerhouse“, indicated in a statement the Confederation of Education Workers. Different health unions and the Ni una Menos collective also joined the repudiation against the closure of the agency, which stressed that the Télam workers are “essential on the road.” by a feminist communication“.
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Writers and cultural leaders also spoke out in favor of the agency’s “practical and incalculable value.” The Nobel Peace Prize, Adolfo Pérez Esquivelshared a video where he expressed “to all the Télam colleagues all the solidarity and support from both me and the Serpaj of Argentina and Latin America” and added: “What President Javier Milei says is an offense to freedom of the press and to all the people.”
Former president Alberto Fernández, the UOCRA, the head of the Union of Senior Personnel of the AFIP, the general secretary of the Luz y Fuerza federation, the social leader Luis D’ Elía, the leader Juan Grabois, the Front of Organizations in Struggle , the Banking Association, the National Front of Peronist Groups, the Equality Foundation, the General Union of Transport Workers Associations, the general secretary of the UTEP, Alejandro Gramajo and Bernarda Llorente – former president of Télam (2019-2023) – also repudiated the closure of the news agency, assessing the “quality of its work and the danger of restrictions on freedom of expression.”
ML / ED