The constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights in practice. Individuals can criticize the government publicly or privately, but there are criminal penalties, including prison sentences, for libel and slander, and government officials have sought to use these against the political opposition and other critics. The government pressed criminal libel and slander charges against Elisa Carrio, head of the opposition Civic Coalition party, for accusing officials in 2004 of corruption. In September 2008 Carrio won a civil case brought by the son of a deceased Peronist leader whom she accused of being involved in official corruption, murder, and drug trafficking; it was the second such case she had won. In December 2008 security forces arrested 26 "neo-Nazis," including four minors, on discrimination charges for conducting a ceremony to commemorate the death of World War II German naval captain Hans Langsdorff. All individuals subsequently were released but still faced discrimination charges.
The independent media arenumerous and active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction.
Numerous FM radio stations continue to broadcast with temporary licenses pending conclusion of a licensing normalization process. In August 2008 AM radio signal Radio Continental, which had been critical of the government, filed a complaint before the Federal Broadcasting Committee (COMFER) for its decision to suspend its FM broadcast. Although the complaint was not resolved by year's end, COMFER did not enforce its decision, and the station continued to broadcast on the FM frequency.
In August 2008 the Association for Civil Rights and the Open Society Justice Initiative published a report alleging that the government's allocation of state advertising funds affected press freedom. The report claimed that the government abused the distribution of state advertising to benefit or punish the press according to the tone of their coverage of the administration. This assessment coincided with press reports and comments made in private by media organization leaders.
According to the Association for Civil Rights, the Neuquen provincial government had not complied by the end of 2008 with a 2007 Supreme Court order to present an official advertising distribution plan that would not indirectly curtail freedom of speech. The 2006 lawsuit lodged by the country's second largest media company, Grupo Editorial Perfil, against the federal government's use of government advertising as a means of indirect censorship remained pending at year's end.
Journalist Sergio Poma died in January 2008 while awaiting appeal of a September 2007 Salta provincial court decision that sentenced him to a one-year suspended prison term and barred him from practicing journalism for one year for slandering the former governor of Salta.
In November 2008 labor activists from the teamsters union, led by Hugo Moyano, vice president of the ruling Peronist Party and leader of the General Labor Confederation (CGT), blocked a newspaper distribution center jointly run by the country's two leading newspapers, Clarin and La Nacion. The union maintained that the protest was technically for better wage and working conditions for the teamsters that drive newspaper distribution trucks. However, media organizations and the opposition criticized the government failure to break up the blockade and called it a direct attack on press freedom; the two newspapers filed criminal charges against the perpetrators.
There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitored e mail or Internet chat rooms. Individuals and groups can engage in the peaceful expression of views via the Internet, including by e mail. According to the government's National Statistics and Census Institute, there are more than three million residential Internet users.
There are no government restrictions on academic freedom or cultural events.