Offices of Tiempo Argentino, a Buenos Aires newspaper critical of Macri, ransacked.

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The production offices of Tiempo Argentino, a Buenos Aires newspaper critical of the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration, and its companion radio station, Radio América, were ransacked early on Monday morning. Furniture, fixtures, computers, server, documents, and communications equipment were destroyed.

The attack took place at around 12:30 a.m. at the newspaper's sole location, a small office building in the largely residential Palermo section of Buenos Aires. Several men in ski masks broke into the office through the entrance to the radio station and forced the three newspaper employees sleeping inside out onto the sidewalk before vandalizing the premises.

Founded in 2010, its 125 employees formed a workers' self-management cooperative after its previous owner, Matías Garfunkel, sold the newspaper in February. They took turns guarding the production office at night as a result of both reiterated threats and a dispute with the buyer, Mariano Martínez Rojas, who according to employees has carried out asset stripping at the newspaper with the goal of closing it.

Martínez Rojas was present at the time of the attack, which according to employees was allowed to take place by police in their refusal to intervene or to allow employees to intervene. Police eventually mediated an exit with the vandals; but not before considerable damage had been inflicted. Police were later filmed escorting a number of vandals out without issuing arrests and without removing their ski masks. Martínez Rojas escaped without arrest.

Police refused to comment; but the assistant manager of the city's Social Communications Office, pro-Macri propagandist Yamil Santoro, dismissed the incident as "a problem between two private parties." While he described Martínez Rojas' use of vandals as "illegal," Santoro defended the decision not to arrest them, calling the vandalism "not flagrant."

The president of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Hebe de Bonafini, spoke in support of the newspaper's employees and tied the attack to the Macri administration, whom she likened "to the last dictatorship, with the exception the thy're not killing people - yet." The attack, she said, "was exactly like those that took place during the dictatorship, when they'd force their way into homes and offices and destroy everything." Bonafini lost two sons and a daughter-in-law during the Dirty War in 1977, and co-founded the world-renowned human rights organization she still heads.

The attack came the day after Tiempo Argentino revealed that Shell Argentina profited by $100 million after Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren decided to import natural gas from a Chilean company purchased by Shell Argentina just months before the newly-elected Macri appointed Aranguren Energy Minister. The purchase resulted in higher prices for consumers in Argentina, where it's now winter, because gas from Bolivia (the country's normal supplier) is 56% cheaper.

Speaking at a press conference hosted by the Buenos Aires Journalists Union (SIPREBA) the following morning, the president of the Más Tiempo cooperative, Javier Borelli, described the incident as a "violation of our rights by both management and the state, of which we expect that our security be guaranteed."

Borelli explained that Martínez Rojas was able to elude arrest by showing police a false lease agreement when, according to Borelli, "no current lease agreement exists between Martínez Rojas and building's owners."

"The damage was inflicted with the goal of stopping the publication of Tiempo Argentino," Borelli said. "We were about to improve our daily online edition, and this complicates that as well as our weekly newsprint edition distributed every Sunday."

Borelli, however, assured that publication will continue. A special newsprint edition is being prepared for Tuesday, July 5.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diarioregistrado.com%2Fsociedad%2F-el-dano-fue-para-impedir-que-tiempo-pueda-seguir-saliendo-_a577a673dcfe4c87c72d757be
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Tiempo Argentino's Facebook page (if you'd like something translated, please ask): https://www.facebook.com/DiarioTiempoArgentino/?fref=ts