Buenos Aires, September 18 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Argentine opposition Mayor Mauricio Macri, who is also running for president, ordered on Thursday the closure of a television channel spearheading an intense investigation of the mayor as he is implicated in an unfolding corruption scandal. 

Buenos Aires governor and presidential candidate for the Victory Front Daniel Scioli condemned the City government's closure of a warehouse belonging to C5N, linking the events with the debacle in Tucumán.
       
The mayor of Buenos Aires backtracked on the decision several hours after C5N television channel condemned the closure as a violation against freedom of expression. The signal of the channel could not be seen for several minutes after power was shut down and the open signal taken off the airwaves.

Citizens and journalists responded on social media and rejected what they saw as an attempt to censor the station. Support for the channel became a trending topic for Argentina’s Twitter users.  

Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández considered the closure of the C5N news channel by the Buenos Aires City government an attack against “freedom of expression,” linking the event with the release of reports by that channel that involved Fernando Niembro, the now former candidate to Congress for the Let’s Change (Cambiemos) opposition coalition, in a high-profile corruption scandal. 

In his daily contact with the press at the Pink House, the head of ministers said yesterday’s shutting down of C5N was a “reprisal” following the reports that showed the contracts awarded by the City administration to the La Usina production company, owned by journalist Niembro, accounting for more than 23 million pesos.    

Despite the local government “revocation” of the closure, claiming it was an administrative mistake, they notified the channel hours after the decision.

C5N had exposed, together with the Tiempo Argentino newspaper, startling revelations that millions of dollars worth in public funds had been transferred to Macri's own party through one of its candidates.    

As the TV station explained on a statement published on their Facebook account, this was not the first attempt to silence them. The station revealed that for two months the city's government had boycotted publicity for the channel.