These days have been one of intense debate about what happened in the Senate session in which the Bases Law and the fiscal package were approved, where a demonstration against the initiative ended with violent incidents, harsh repression and dozens of people arrested. The development of the events and the actions of both the security forces and the Justice system raise fears that an authoritarian offensive has begun. that seeks to curtail the right to demonstrate, basic and constitutive of democracy.
The versions of what happened are contrasting: while the Government assures that the protesters threw stones and caused chaos such as the burning of bicycles, cars or businesses, which forced their intervention, human rights organizations point out that it was the security forces themselves that started the incidents, when trying to force them to retreat to a portion of the protesters and then directly try to break up the march. The forces were accused of excessively using less lethal weapons (rubber bullets, gas) that affected not only protesters but also deputies and journalists.
Be that as it may, the police intervention ended with 35 people detained, many of them far from the area of the incidents and with no proven relationship with the violence, as admitted by Judge María Servini de Cubría, which first released 17 detainees due to lack of evidence (photos, videos, witnesses) of their participation and days later another 11, given that the crimes they are accused of are minor, far from the seriousness that the prosecutor’s office assigned them. The most violent incident, the burning of a press cell phone, has not been identified or arrested.
That is, perhaps, the most worrying point of the entire process. The Government first and the prosecutor later accused the detainees of serious crimes such as “terrorism”, “attack against the constitutional order”, “illicit association” and “sedition”. in a generic way, without providing concrete evidence that linked them to the facts. The criminal code requires that in order to attribute crimes of these characteristics, the accusations and evidence against each person must be described in detail. Several were transferred to federal prisons, where they reported humiliation and mistreatment.
The right to protest is especially protected, both in our Constitution and in the international human rights treaties to which our country adheres. Beyond the fact that in the past there have been abuses in demonstrations with traffic blockades on routes, streets and squares (which have been questioned by this newspaper), that does not justify the severity of the restrictions. that today they want to impose themselves.
The reason for this robust legal protection is that publicly demonstrating against decisions of authority is an essential part of the right to free expression, constitutive of the democratic system. It is for this reason that autocratic regimes, whether left or right, are the first ones they seek to curtail and criminalize. Measures such as “prior notice” of a march are to protect protesters and should never be confused with “authorization” from the Government. Likewise, in the event of possible disturbances, It is the obligation of the State to professionally channel and neutralize sources of violence, protecting peaceful protesters, not indiscriminate repression. Deprivation of liberty is exceptional when there is a risk of escape or obstruction of the investigation., and that must be argued and proven in the case. Very little of that has been seen these days.
As constitutionalist Roberto Gargarella points out, “democratic fatigue” in countries like ours is expressed in very generous constitutional norms to recognize rights, which coexist with miserable institutional practices that curtail them daily and governments that concentrate more and more power and seek to prevent questions. Therefore, protecting those who criticize must be a priority to avoid falling into a kind of permanent state of exception, where basic rights depend on the whim of the ruler in power.
