06/24/2024. The leader’s defense lawyer, Luis Paz, considered judges to be part of the problem in the country and that the Legislative Branch is slow and old, which is why he urged the construction of a law in accordance with the needs of the people.
*By Luis Paz
In this twilight of civilization and institutional decay, Milagro Sala has been imprisoned for more than 3,000 days. Confinement that is a consequence of a classist decision, because she is a leader, an indigenous woman and a coya.
I read and reread the ruling of the Oral Criminal Court No. 3 of Jujuy and I have no doubts about what we have been saying since January 16, 2016: that his arrest constituted a true laboratory of political persecution, using the shameful Judiciary, media sectors and politicians.
I must also say that “the caste”, as they say now, did little and nothing. During those years, many comrades from the Túpac Amaru of Jujuy were arbitrarily deprived of their freedom; the 12 members of the board of directors were imprisoned and some remain in prison today. Emblems at the national level were Amado Boudou, former vice president, but without a doubt, the arrest of Julio de Vido was the total surrender of the flags of Peronism. With honorable exceptions, his outrage was the surrender of politics into the hands of the rancid right and its acolytes.
In December 2022, former Argentine president Alberto Fernández had committed to the Grandmothers and Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and Children of the Disappeared to find a mechanism to free her.
Meanwhile, Milagro deteriorates physically and psychologically, gradually and without pause despite the humane and professional treatment she carries out in the city of La Plata, where she is detained, to mitigate the deep vein thrombosis that afflicts her.
Together with lawyers from some spaces, we were able to imagine tools to unblock or alleviate this democratic wound caused by revanchism. Did not reach.
Many of us are convinced that the Law in Argentina has died and we must build one that is similar to what the people need, a right that the great majority needs and not the one that was in force until now, which benefits a few.
The Argentine Judiciary, some judges, are the root of our problems.
The Legislative Branch is slow and old, it does not correspond to the currents of urgency.
And despite all this, we continue to fight the illegitimate process of detention and persecution of the organization that Milagro leads: denounce the violation of their human rights, the existence and validity of a sinister plan of illegal espionage in Jujuy, demand a fair process and continue asking for their freedom and embrace in solidarity those who during all these years were criminalized for their commitment to the poor people, to the working people.
The political, judicial and media persecution to which Milagro Sala and my colleagues from the Túpac Amaru Neighborhood Organization are subjected has clear political and judicial intellectual authorship: Former governor Gerardo Morales and some members of the Supreme Court of Jujuy, some retirees and others “resigned”.
The clear objective was to decimate the popular organization that managed to break the monopoly in the public works of social housing and build participatory budgets in the matter, which put the political and economic system in Jujuy in check by denouncing mafia pacts with the last civic and ecclesiastical dictatorship. and military, and that gave priority and prominence to the most excluded people, indigenous, unemployed, disabled, young people, as subjects of rights and social transformation.
Milagro Sala is imprisoned for being a political leader who confronted royal power.
Macri passed, he illegally indebted us up to our heads for many generations and guaranteed a Judicial Branch (the root of all the problems) that will only persecute its political enemies. Alberto Fernández passed and the Judiciary did not purge itself, an attack against Cristina occurred and the judiciary remains unharmed.
Today in this wasteland of history we find ourselves again with arbitrary arrests, today it is the turn of ordinary people who go out to protest against the public hunger policies that the Milei government is imposing, which used the state repressive apparatus to illegally deprive of freedom , within the framework of the treatment in the National Congress of the Bases Law. While I was writing this column, 28 people of the 33 detained were released. A big little victory.
What do I observe between Milagro’s arrest and these people. Various patterns of judicial, social, journalistic and political treatment similar to what happened in Jujuy starting in 2016.
Milagro Sala, leader of the Túpac Amaru, was arrested on January 16, 2016 in the province of Jujuy. Her arrest occurred in a context of growing political and social tension after the arrival of a new government in the province and at the national level, clearly at the service of foreign powers to the detriment of the country.
She was accused of instigating protests and several crimes related to the management of public funds intended for the construction of social housing.
The arrest generated reproaches, both nationally and internationally, with accusations of political persecution by the government of former governor Gerardo Morales. In fact, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights-IACHR- and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights-IACHR Court- among other national and international Human Rights organizations, expressed themselves in the sense of arbitrary detention.
The 33 detained in the repression of June 12, 2024 participated in a demonstration against the policies of the national government. The protest took place in a context of economic crisis, growing social discontent and deepening inequality, mass dismissals of state workers and the installation of a hunger policy on the Argentine people in general and on boys and girls in particular. This is not going to end well.
Milagro was mistreated and tortured during her confinement and during the oral trials to which she was subjected. Today we know that the detainees of June 12 were mistreated, harassed and the police and prison officials were cruel during their confinements. In both cases, the arrests are attempts to exemplify, generate terror in the population and silence critical and dissident voices, reflecting a use of the judicial system for political purposes. It is outrageous and disgraceful that the pusillanimous Carlos Stornelli accuses you. Both the arrest of Milagro Sala and that of the protesters on June 12 have provoked protest reactions and complaints from Human Rights organizations throughout the country, indicating a pattern of concern about respect for economic, social, cultural and political. Both cases show a common pattern of judicialization of social protest and freedom of expression, where the state response to dissent and social demands is managed through the criminal system. The media has played a crucial role in public perception of both cases, influencing public opinion and, in some cases, polarizing the narrative around the detainees and the government’s actions. In summary, both the arrest of Milagro Sala and that of those detained on June 12, 2024 reflect similar dynamics of confrontation between the State and critical social sectors, with profound implications for the rule of law and Human Rights in Argentina.
For a full democracy without prisoners or political prisoners. It is in our hands to put an end to this mess.
*Defense lawyer for Milagro Sala
