Argentina experienced another repressive Wednesday in front of the National Congress. The police again violated the Retirees’ March, attacking a photographer who was covering the mobilization and the demonstrators.

One of the attacked is a pensioner. Five people were arrested and others were repressed with sticks, tear gas and water.

RELATED:

Argentina: Two Sentenced for Attempted Assassination of Cristina Fernandez

The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) rejected the criminalization of demonstrations, calling for “not naturalizing that someone ends up in prison just for going to protest.”

The Ministry of Security deployed a disproportionate security operation in the vicinity of Congress, with a cordon of the Federal Police, members of the Gendarmerie and Prefecture, fences and hydrant trucks; on the eve of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies to regulate the decrees of necessity and urgency of President Javier Milei.

“There were two moments of tension, the first was at the beginning of the march and the arrests were televised, the other in the deconcentration,” commented journalist Ernesto Torres, of the Indymedia platform.

According to the Página 12 platform, three people were arrested around 4:00 p.m. (local time), retiree Víctor Amarilla and photographers Fabrizio Fisher and Cristian Balderrama. Two hours later, while the march was disintegrating, two citizens, Mateo Roldan and Osvaldo Mansilla, were arrested.

The Association Against Institutional Violence (ACVI) published on its social networks the film record of the arbitrary detentions. “My husband was defending me so that they wouldn’t suck me, and they took him away. They were kicking with those boots and they fell on us,” Balderrama’s partner told the camera.

On the other hand, a retiree insisted that “they know what they did, go look for Espert, catch the narcos!”, referring to the deployment of armed troops against the peaceful popular resistance.

Justice for Pablo Grillo

Pablo Grillo, an Argentine photographer who was covering a March of retirees on March 12, was seriously wounded by agent Héctor Jesús Guerrero, who cut open his skull with a tear gas canister.

On this case, last Tuesday Judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría, issued the indictment of the gendarme for crimes of very serious injuries and repeated abuse of weapons, on five occasions, being a member of a security force.

Guerrero’s prosecution does not include preventive detention, although he must maintain the fixed address, notify the Court in case of absence for more than 72 hours and appear in the first five days of each month at the nearest Federal Police station.

“From these images it can be seen without any doubt that Guerrero fired the shot in an anti-regulatory manner in the direction in which the demonstrators were, with a more than clear visibility, without there being smoke or water or any other substance or obstacle that could have prevented the named from detecting the presence of a large number of people in the direction in which he fired,” said the judge.

The records of Cuban-Argentine photographer and journalist Kaloian Santos Cabrera made it possible to determine the identity of the person who had shot Grillo.

IN THIS ARTICLE