In the evening of 22 November, a group of nine hooded men threw various Molotov cocktails at the offices of Grupo Clarín, Argentina’s biggest, and opposition-aligned, media group.
The attack, at 11pm at night in Barracas, a neighbourhood in the south-east of the city of Buenos Aires, was caught on CCTV and involved the use of seven or eight incendiary devices. The building was closed at the time, with Grupo Clarín confirming there was only limited material damage, with no victims or personal injuries.
A police and court investigation has been launched, with reports that two motorcycles that may have been used by the attackers are being sought. Media reports also say that police were able to retrieve a fingerprint, but a check against the national registry drew a blank, fuelling speculation that one of the attackers might have been a foreign national.
The attack has been widely condemned as negative for press freedom. President Alberto Fernández said that any form of violence was a threat to “democratic co-existence”. Former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) said it was an “unacceptable reminder of past violence”.
Vice President Cristina Fernández, who was president from 2007-2015, who led a long legal dispute with Grupo Clarín (the government at the time sought to break up the conglomerate), was also quick to condemn the attack, re-tweeting a statement from the La Cámpora faction of the ruling coalition condemning violence and hate speech. The attack was also condemned by local and international media associations.
Various journalists have speculated about the identity and motives of the attackers. Some have pointed out that Clarín had published a series of reports on the rise of drug trafficking in the Greater Buenos Aires area. Eduardo Valdés, a deputy for the ruling left-of-centre Frente de Todos (FdT) coalition, has suggested that the attackers could have been rogue policemen, linked to a recent scandal over the police shooting of Lucas González, a young football player. Clarín had also covered that case in detail.