Buenos Aires, December 24 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Argentina’s new Minister of Communications Oscar Aguad announced government intervention into the operations of the Federal Administration of Audiovisual Communication (AFSCA), the latest twist in the long-running dispute over media ownership in the country.

“A decree was passed intervening in the AFSCA and the AFTIC,” Aguad told press on Wednesday. Both entities, which control the audiovisual and digital media market, “do not respond to the new organic structure of the ministerial law,” he added.

Aguad went on to criticize a 2009 media law approved by Congress after several years of negotiations with social movements, NGOs, universities and political parties imposed a 35 percent limit on the market share that any media company can hold.

Supporters of the law argue that the legislation severely weakened the power of the country’s largest media conglomerates by putting a majority of the country’s broadcast licenses in non-corporate hands.

Aguad opposes the law stating: “The use of the Media Law to attack certain media is not the spirit of this government. We want to apply it in an impartial way because in some parts the law has significant progresses and in others it has fallen behind. Big and small media must be respected.”

Aguad has ties to Luciano Benjamin Menendez, who was head of the Third Army Corps during the 1976-1983 dictatorship and carried out repressive military operations in 10 provinces in the north of the country, according to local media agency Telam.

During the dictatorship, the military government collaborated with the country’s media outlets to black out coverage on human rights abuses, kidnappings, torture and disappearances.