BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – Scores of tax officials raided Argentina’s biggest newspaper yesterday, intensifying a fierce battle between the government and one of Latin America’s largest media groups.
More than 150 tax inspectors searched the Buenos Aires building housing the offices of daily Clarin, which is owned by media and telecommunications company Grupo Clarin, and removed files and documents.
The raid comes as center-left President Cristina Fernandez is pushing a media reform bill that analysts say will weaken Grupo Clarin’s role as the dominant media company in Argentina.
An opposition lawmaker said the tax operation damaged Fernandez’s argument that her bill is aimed at bringing more democracy and competition to the media sector.
“There are no more doubts about what the bill’s aims are. It’s meant to damage an economic group and not to help citizens,” Deputy Julian Obiglio, head of the center-left PRO party in the lower house, said in a statement.
Fernandez and her husband and predecessor, former president Nestor Kirchner, have increased state intervention in some sectors of the economy and have clashed with the agricultural industry over farm policy.
