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Argentine reporter goes on hunger strike, claiming she was fired for criticizing the government

By Liliana Honorato

An Argentine reporter went on a hunger strike at the end of August, six years after her contract with a television channel was not renewed, reported the news group Rosario3. "I want them to give back my voice and job," said the journalist.

"I'm striking so they'll give me back my mouthpiece, that they let me practice my craft with true freedom, my journalistic work," Marcela Pacheco told the newspaper Clarín, claiming that Televisión Pública fired her in 2006 for criticizing the government.

While Pacheco told Clarín she was the "victim of official censorship," the reporter said the "public" took her mouthpiece and she was asking them for the job back, according to Contexto.

At the beginning of August, Argentine journalist Juan Cruz Sanz claimed he was censored after President Cristina Kirchner blocked his appearance on a news program on the C5N television channel. In April, the Inter American Press Association criticized the Argentine government for punishing “critical media by withholding official advertising,” and called the Kirchner administration "arbitrary and intolerant."

Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.