Argentine journalists accused in 'people's trial'

[Judi Lynn]

Apr 29, 6:45 PM EDT
Argentine journalists accused in 'people's trial'
By MICHAEL WARREN
Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- The Argentine presidency's campaign against media criticism inspired a symbolic "people's trial" Thursday against some of the nation's leading journalists.

The event outside the government palace was led by Hebe de Bonafini, an activist with close ties to President Cristina Fernandez and Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez's husband and predecessor.

Bonafini said her group, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, intends to expose a younger generation to misdeeds by some journalists during the 1976-1983 dictatorship and to vindicate those members of the media who risked their lives to report about human rights abuses.

"This trial has to do with denouncing the sellouts, the accomplices, those who never said anything when we were imprisoned," she told crowd of several hundred people. "What we don't want is for the same journalists who lied then to keep doing it now."

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_ARGENTINA_MEDIA_CONFLICT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-04-29-18-45-11

[naaman fletcher]

1. A peoples trial planned by the President? smells fishy.

Smells more like trying to deflect attention from her presidency. How many journalists from 1983 are even still in the business?

[Judi Lynn]

2. Telling details, as the owner of Clarín herself took some Dirty War victims' children.

Telling details, as the owner of Clarín herself took some Dirty War victims' children.

It will be good to learn more about it, hope ALL the facts will be revealed. It certainly tells people where Clarín is coming from in its perspective, and where it stood during the Dirty War: firmly behind the torturing, terrorizing, murdering right-wing bastards.

Argentina case evokes ‘dirty war’ memories
By Jude Webber in Buenos Aires

Published: April 26 2010 16:00 | Last updated: April 26 2010 16:00

Just as Argentina jailed its last “dirty war” leader, a bitter political row has flared over whether the children of the owner of the country’s top media group were stolen from people who disappeared under the military dictatorship.

The emblematic case, mixing human rights abuses perpetrated by the 1976-83 junta with the high-profile barrage of attacks between media group Clarín, the judiciary and President Cristina Fernández, illustrates how the country’s past continues to cast a long shadow over the present nearly 30 years since the return of democracy.

“This case is one of public interest. It goes beyond a private case,” said Gastón Chillier, executive director of CELS, a leading human rights group.

Felipe and Marcela Noble Herrera, both 34, broke their silence last week with a full-page advert in newspapers and a television appearance, saying they feared they had become “pawns in the onslaught” against Clarín, owned by their mother, Ernestina Herrera de Noble.

On television, Marcela Noble Herrera said the “government is pursuing us and pressurising the judges who have to resolve our cause” instead of taking issue with the delays in resolving a matter “that would bring peace to three families”.

More:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f87516e8-4eef-11df-b8f4-00144feab49a.html
Right-wing paper, of course.