President Javier Milei had the 142th state of the nation in Congress on Friday March 1 and confirmed that he would be closing the INADI and public news agency Télam. Even though there is no law or decree ordering it in force, on Sunday evening the website was disabled and the employees reported on social networks that the Government had ordered the newsroom to be fenced in.
A demonstration has been called for Monday at noon against the closing of the agency, which has already been widely condemned on social networks. “The Government is carrying out one of the worst attacks to freedom of speech in the last 40 years of democracy”, they denounced from Somos Télam, which brings together employees from the state news agency, on its X account.
“This is how we found the Télam Agency this morning. We’re barred from going in and they’ve also blocked the website and systems. Seven days of ‘time offf work’. Public media are always a necessary voice. #TelamNoSeCierra #TelamSeDefiende (Telam is not closing, Telam has to be defended)", wrote journalist Andrea Vulcano, in a message including a video of the fences.
The Télam workers’ assembly had called for an "embrace” of the agency on Monday at 12:·30 pm. However, on Sunday at midnight they updated the situation and claimed that the newsroom had been fenced in, attaching images of the operation.
“From the Buenos Aires Press Union we report that the police is fencing Télam in. We, representatives, delegates, the internal union commission, are here defending this medium and its over 78 years of history”, they stated in the video shared on X. “We believe it to be trespassing on democracy and freedom of speech, which is why we’ll defend it. We have to defend Télam”, they added from the hall of the building.
“We’re inside Télam, warned by the comrades who were doing their job, who called us because they were starting to fence in the buildings. We will defend Télam, the public heritage and jobs. It’s the worst attack on freedom of speech in democracy” added another journalist. The workers believe the fencing in of both buildings of the state-run company, Agencia Nacional de Noticias y Publicidades, is an attempt to repress the “mass embrace and prevent workers from accessing” and they posited that it is an attack on the right to communication and society’s right to information.
La Libertad Avanza activists, in turn, also shared images of the police operation, celebrating the closing of the agency. “We eliminated the INADI, which as well as playing the role of thought police had an annual budget of 2.8 billion to support rented militants. In this vein, we’re closing the agency Télam, which has been used over the last decades as a Kirchnerite propaganda agency”, the President had argued.
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