A confessed admirer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and his strong hand, Javier Milei advocates in Argentina for a limited State that barely focuses on the application of law and order. He chose his former presidential rival Patricia Bullrich as Minister of Security, who had already held that position during the government of Mauricio Macri. Eight years later, conditions are more conducive to the application of his authoritarian ideas. It debuted with an anti-picketing protocol that it had already tested in 2016 and that enables the intervention of security forces “in the face of impediments to the movement of people or means of transport, partial or total cuts to national routes and other routes of circulation” without the mediation of court order and allows suing organizations that are responsible “for the cost of the operations.”
The premiere of the protocol took place at the demonstration on December 20, 2023, where an oversized police operation was deployed that ended with the violent eviction of those present and the demand of the participating organizations. Despite this, the Government failed to intimidate what is a deeply rooted tradition in Argentina: taking to the streets to express social discontent. There were several well-attended demonstrations such as the one called by the General Labor Central in the first general strike on January 24, those of feminist organizations on March 8 and the university one, which demanded the updating of funds for public education. The protocol was impossible to apply in mass events, which suggested that it was obsolete due to the popular response. But six months into the government, hostility towards freedom of expression had a new chapter.
On Wednesday, June 12, the vote was held in the National Senate on the so-called “Bases Law”, a megaproposal to scrap the State sent by the Executive Branch to the National Congress. Several union, social and political organizations called for demonstrations and, from very early on, a crowd gathered around Congress with the aim of promoting rejection. Inside the venue, there was talk of a possible tie in the vote, so it was sensed that participation in the streets could influence the final decision.
Stones and tear gas
After noon, some disturbances began. Some protesters threw stones and set fire to a vehicle due to the inaction of the police, who then let them escape. Shortly after, the riot police advanced violently against the crowd. They used tear gas, rubber bullets, stun bombs and water cannons. The evacuation of the street occurred in the midst of a climate of high tension that culminated in more than 200 injuries and 33 arrests.
Sasha Llyardet, who attended the demonstration with her university classmates, tells Morning Express that when she saw that there were beginning to be conflicts with the security forces, she began to retreat, but an operation of motorized officers were stationed a few blocks away. of the place. “They were waiting for us to leave, they went out to hunt people. We got scared and started running like everyone else,” she says. “A friend fell, I delayed trying to pick her up and some police showed up. They held her on the floor and they told me that if I ran away from her, they would shoot her,” she says through tears.
The violence of this scene did not cease to escalate. The officers held the service weapon to his head and told him over and over again that if he didn’t like that “he shouldn’t have gone.” From that moment on, she was transferred to several police stations, which made it difficult for her family, who found out about her arrest through the media, to find her whereabouts. For almost 24 hours, her sister Grisel says, they were looking for her until they managed to find her in Mayor’s Office 15 of the City of Buenos Aires where she had spent the night handcuffed in a hallway.
The testimonies agree: on the street, the security forces inflicted terror to break up the demonstration. And the arrests were so arbitrary that they even took away people who were in the vicinity for other reasons. This is what Emiliano Villar, the lawyer who took charge of representing the detained Luis Alberto de la Vega, a homeless person who was passing by, tells it. “He was heading to the school where he is completing his primary education, he didn’t even know there was a protest. The [policía] motorized traffic is very scary, they get on the sidewalk with their vehicles, they set up ambushes. Then Luis hid behind a container because he was scared. That only gave them the idea that he was doing something improper and they took him away.”
Argentina has a very important history of state repression and there are customs that persist as a self-care strategy. For example, in demonstrations, those who are arrested shout their own name to facilitate the subsequent discovery of their whereabouts. This is what Luis Alberto de la Vega did and, thanks to the fact that someone was recording the situation and uploaded it to social networks, the Civil Association Project 7 – which helps people living on the street – took care of finding out where they took him. and to provide legal representation.
Juan Ignacio Roncoroni (EFE)
At the end of the repression, the official account of the President’s Office on “They tried to perpetrate a coup d’état, attacking the normal functioning of the Argentine National Congress.”
Around midnight, the General Base Law was voted on in the Senate and the result was a tie. The vice president, Victoria Villarruel, unbalanced the number in favor of the ruling party.
At the request of federal prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, the 35 people were placed at the disposal of federal justice, where Judge María Servini intervenes. He accused them of multiple crimes such as: injuries, fire or damage, crimes against public safety, instigation to commit crimes, public intimidation, incitement to collective violence against institutions, crimes against public powers and the constitutional order, attack against authority. aggravated, resistance to authority and/or disturbance of order in sessions of legislative bodies. In addition, 33 of them were placed under preventive detention and several were transferred to units of the Federal Penitentiary System.
“We were very scared”
Sasha Llyardet says that the conditions were deplorable: “We were very afraid, we didn’t know what it was going to be like to be in prison, we are not people with criminal records. The pavilion and the food were full of cockroaches.” The conditions in the prisons are inhumane, and that is another problem to solve, but in this case there was special treatment with the prisoners for protesting. During those days, other detainees recounted torture that included intimidation, humiliation, and physical injuries.
The families, for their part and with the support of various social organizations, led two rallies to demand the releases. Finally, on June 14, Servini ordered the release of 17 of the detainees and four days later they released 11 more. In addition, the procedural situation of the 33 defendants was resolved: the prosecution with preventive detention of 5 of them, who are the only ones currently detained, and the lack of merit was ruled on the remaining 28. That is to say, there was no evidence to support the accusations. In any case, the cases remain open until the acquittals are issued.
That same week, the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations (UN), Volker Turk, warned of an “undermining” in this area in Argentina. “I urge authorities to place human rights at the center of their policy-making to build a more cohesive and inclusive society. This also means full respect for the right of assembly and freedom of expression,” he said.
Presentation before the IACHR
During those days, social networks and the media reflected strong concern about what was happening to the detainees. And the events alerted social organizations and organizations that ensure the right to strike and the guarantee of human rights in Argentina, who made their resources available to the families. At the same time, the Center for Legal and Social Studies made an intervention presentation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations special rapporteurs to intervene in what they called an “arbitrary and dangerous” criminal escalation.
Warning that this was a possible outcome, on June 12 the Historical Archive of Repression in Argentina (AHoRA) worked on the site, a photographic and documentary recording project that is part of Mapa de la Police – the citizen care network for counteract police violence in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
One of the AHoRa coordinators, Mario Santucho, said: “We have been warning of a break in the minimum standards of democracy. “What happened in this case was clearly a violation of the right to protest with the dissolution of the demonstration and there is much evidence to think that, although they justified the action with the incidents of that day, the repression was planned.”
In that sense, he highlighted “a qualitative leap in the repressive vocation” of the government with the instrumentalization of judicial action, which extended the arrests for several days even without evidence to support the accusations. “Now a big question arises about how we are going to continue safeguarding our right to strike,” he said.
When asked about the possible need for international help to deal with this situation, he answered that “currently, there are governments that see Javier Milei’s government as a threat to democracy. Those of us in the country are going to continue doing everything necessary to ensure that freedom of expression and human rights are respected, but it may not be enough. “It may be time for people around the world to think about concrete support strategies and get really involved.”
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