With a harsh warning, the governor of La Rioja, Ricardo Quintelawarned that the “repression scheme” against the opposition marches “is going to end badly,” after the serious incidents in Congress during the protests against the Bases Law, and defended the protesters who mobilized last week.
“This repression scheme does not work, it will end badly. And this will prove right to this man who says that they want to throw a dead man at him. No. It’s just that, in this way, there will be deaths“, stressed the Riojan, who seeks to position himself as one of the leaders of Peronism that confronts the management of President Javier Milei.
Quintela referred to the scenes of violence between protesters and federal forces last Wednesday, as a result of clashes during the Senate’s treatment of the Bases Law. “I have been an eyewitness of 2001, when they threw their horses on people. People have the right to defend themselves against aggression of these characteristics.“, he said, in statements to the radio The uncovering. “Hateful messages have a result. They are trying to seditious workers and domestic workers,” she noted.
From that place, the governor called to assume a “role of the opposition and form the nucleus of resistance that does not agree with the behavior and way of acting of the President of the Nation.”
As a result of police operations against street protests, national and international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, called the attention of the Government of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) for the exercise of force in the context of protests and mobilizations.
Shortly after the vote on the Base Law, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) convened a virtual hearing on July 11, following a presentation made in April by human rights organizations and unions regarding the “serious situation of obstruction, threats, attacks and criminalization of social protest and freedom of expression.”
In that request, one of the cases presented was that of the lawyer Matías Aufieri, member of the Center of Professionals for Human Rights (Ceprodh) and advisor to the deputies of the Left Front (FIT-U). During a repression, he was shot with a rubber bullet in the left eye, which caused him to lose his vision.
From Kirchnerism, the left and the most critical sectors of the opposition have been warning about the impact of the libertarian government’s policies on human and social rights.
In line with Quintela’s comment, the Minister of Habitat and Urban Development of the province of Buenos Aires, Silvina Batakis, pointed out that “mortality in general terms is going to grow a lot compared to 2023 and 2022,” as a result of the impact of the economic adjustment policies implemented by the government of Javier Milei.
The Axel Kicillof official pointed out the lack of access to medicines and food that is no longer consumed due to the drop in the population’s income level.
“When If you have an adult who starts taking a medicine every other day, it will increase your mortality rate.when you have cancer patients who cannot access their remedies, mortality is going to grow,” he said in statements to Channel 9. In that group he included the “diabetic patientswho “can no longer access the medications they used to get and we see that their leg has to be amputated.”
The reproaches for the deterioration of access to basic human rights and the continuity of these types of policies are beginning to have an international echo. The High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations (UN), Volker Turk, criticized in the 56th session of the organization the approach that the Argentine government is developing in this matter.
“In Argentina, the recent measures proposed and adopted run the risk of undermine the protection of human rights. These include cuts to public spending that particularly affect the most marginalized, the announced closure of state institutions dedicated to women’s rights and access to justice, and an instruction from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to suspend participation in all events abroad related to the 2030 Agenda,” Turk expressed in the second of the three assemblies that the UN will hold in 2024.
