Buenos Aires (AFP)

Some 403 journalists were tagged under the chairmanship of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), at WTO and G20 summits in Buenos Aires, revealed the new management of the Federal Intelligence Agency which is calling for a investigation of the ex-president of center right.

The list includes dozens of journalists from foreign media, including several from AFP.

"A complaint was filed Friday and tomorrow (Monday) all evidence will be provided," an official source, who requested anonymity, told AFP on Sunday.

A hundred academics, business leaders and other personalities from civil society were also listed.

The documents on this case were found in three envelopes marked "2017", "G20 journalists", "miscellaneous", in a safe in the office occupied by the operational director of the Agency's counterintelligence at the time. Intelligence Agency (AFI).

"The investigations into the journalists were sketchy," said the source. It was "information taken on social networks and from there we traced an ideological and political profile".

A complaint was filed by Cristina Caamaño, charged by the center-left president Alberto Fernandez to conduct an audit of the Federal Intelligence Agency, with a view to its reorganization.

According to the complaint, the files included "political preferences, publications on social networks, sympathies towards feminist groups or with political and / or cultural overtones, among others".

The cards carried comments like "always take sides against the government", "is very critical of the current government", "supports the government", "signed a petition in favor of legal abortion".

According to the profile, the cards bore indications of different colors (green, yellow and red) intended probably to guide the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the process of accreditation of journalists to these summits.

Buenos Aires hosted the 11th World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in 2017 and the 13th G20 summit the following year.

Caamaño asked the justice to open an investigation into the former director of AFI Gustavo Arribas, the deputy director Silvina Majdalani and various intelligence agents, as well as the ex-president Macri as a "charged personality" to determine the strategic objectives of the national intelligence policy "

The investigations in question on journalists and civil figures "were not mandated or authorized by any magistrate", underlines the complaint filed by AFI.

The Association of Foreign Correspondents in the Republic of Argentina (ACERA) reacted in a statement: "If the actions of the government of Mauricio Macri are proven, ACERA firmly rejects practices of this nature, which are unacceptable in a democracy and seriously impair the exercise of the profession of journalist ".

The Argentine Federation of Press Workers (FATPREN) and the Press Union of Buenos Aires (SIPREBA) have also expressed their rejection of such practices.

At the WTO summit, the fact sheets were more in-depth on business leaders, trade unionists and other social leaders, with detailed data on people, their property and their wages.

At the end of May, the Argentine federal prosecutor's office already opened a preliminary investigation against Mauricio Macri, suspected of having asked to be spied on by business leaders, civil servants, artists and figures of the opposition and his majority during his mandate.

Mr. Macri had already been implicated in illegal espionage when he was mayor of Buenos Aires (2007-2015), but the case was closed without action two weeks after his arrival at the head of the country in December 2015.

© 2020 AFP