The Argentine government tried to bring back mandatory registration for journalists but quickly backtracked following heavy criticism of Thursday’s announcement. The move would have reinstated a 1947 bill that was struck down in the eighties because it limited freedom of expression and the right to access information.

“If you are a professional journalist you can obtain the National Registry of Journalists from the Secretariat of Labor, Employment and Social Security,” read an X post published Thursday morning by the Human Capital Ministry. The post included a link to the government website stating that the registration was mandatory and detailing the cumbersome procedure allegedly required for all professional journalists, cartoonists, translators, and proofreaders, among others.

The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA, by its Spanish acronym) quickly condemned the decision and called it an “obsolete practice,” citing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which called the mandatory registration an “illegitimate restriction to the universal right to freedom of expression” in 1985.  Argentina’s mandatory register was repealed the same year.

“Entire generations of journalists are not even aware of the rule and have never registered,” FOPEA said in a post on X. “Today, the Human Capital Minister [Sandra Petovello] insults the freedom that her party claims to defend, trying to condition, limit, monitor, and restrict access to freedom of expression and the exercise of the profession of informing.”

Following the intense criticisms throughout the morning, the word “mandatory” was deleted from the Human Capital Ministry website, and later the whole post was removed from the website. The X post was also deleted.

Since taking office, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni and the official presidential X account have had an outsized role in communications with the media. President Javier Milei has had several clashes with journalists, including attacks on social media, while Security Minister Patricia Bullrich criticized those covering anti-government protests. 

In the latest example of tensions between the administration and the press, journalist Silvia Mercado was denied further access to the Casa Rosada after asking about the number of dogs the president has — he claims there are five, but various journalists say there are four — and criticized Milei for plagiarizing the books he wrote. Deputies Esteban Paulon and Mónica Fein, from the Hacemos Coalición Federal bloc, requested that Adorni clarify why Mercado’s accreditation was not renewed but the presidential spokesman has not commented on the matter.

In March, Milei abruptly closed down state news agency Télam which, with around 700 employees, was the biggest in Argentina.

Last month, Argentina fell 26 places in the World Press Freedom Index The data was released by international freedom of information watchdog Reporters Without Borders in a report describing Milei as “a president openly hostile to the media” who “poses a disturbing new threat to the right to information in the country.”