Macri's media law decrees debated at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Civil rights organizations and the Argentine government faced off yesterday at a public hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) over the right to the freedom of expression and the Mauricio Macri administration's decrees rescinding the 2009 Broadcast Media Law. The hearing was part of the 157th period of audiences which are currently being held by the IACHR, in Washington DC. The commission is part of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The hearing was set up following a request by the Argentine Public Ombudswoman’s office, which warned of the effect the amendments made to the anti-trust mandates of the regulation may have on the autonomy of the regulatory bodies. The decree, issued less than a month after President Macri was sworn-in, dissolved the AFSCA media watchdog and the AFTIC telecommunications watchdog, replacing the two with a department (ENACOM) with an overwhelming pro-government majority.
Horacio Verbitsky, president of the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), opened the debate, saying that “the Macri administration argues that all media will be able to compete in the market, glossing over the differences in scale that would make most community media inviable without regulation by the state. If the implementation of law was incomplete or imperfect, the new government had the opportunity to correct those aspects - but not to suppress with the stroke of a pen a legal framework that guarantees communication as a right for all society, and to instead decree the law of the jungle, where the big players will grab everything and will leave nothing for society.”
Professor Martín Becerra drew attention to the fact that in “Argentina there are high levels of market concentration. Nearly 40% of the broadcast television are in the hands of two groups. In cable television, which is how 83% of homes have access to television in Argentina, nearly 70% of subscribers are controlled by two groups. However, the new guidelines decreed by the government turn their back on this problem, blocking competition and as such promoting concentration.”
“ENACOM was decreed with a complete governmentalization of media in mind, departing from republican ideals as it combined the discretionality of the market with the discretionality of the executive.”
The government responded by attacking former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s record and promising to work toward the implementation of a new telecommunications law. Represented by Human Rights Secretary Claudio Avruj, ENACOM President Miguel de Godoy, the Argentine delegation argued that freedom of expression would be best served by the changes they have promised.
Avruj was among those listed in the Panama Papers scandal as the head of an offshore shell company, “Kalushy,” that he and his wife have maintained since 1992.
The public hearing is taking place a few days after the 2009 Broadcast Media Law - which has been praised the UN, the Carter Center, the IFJ, and Reporters Without Borders - was buried by Congress on Wednesday, as Macri's coalition in Congress and members from Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front voted to approve the president’s recent “emergency” decreto dissolve it. The ruling coalition ordered that voting take place through a show of hands instead of an electronic vote, meaning there was no record of each lawmaker’s vote.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212224/media-law-dispute-reaches-oas-stage-