Argentina must protect social mobilization, not silence it

More than 35 international and regional organizations call on the argentine government to comply with its international obligations on the right to protest and to investigate the police action on March 12. They also express their solidarity with the demand of decent pensions and concern about the rise of authoritarianism in Argentina.

  

Repression as policy: Violence, arbitrary detentions, and the use of dangerous weapons in Argentina

The mobilization outside Congress demanding a pension increase on March 12 was violently repressed in a large-scale operation involving five security forces. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich had warned in advance that there would be repression. Tear gas, rubber bullets, and arbitrary detentions marked a day in which the government justified its actions by invoking the narrative of an “attempted coup.”

  

IACHR Hearing: State fails to address refugee and asylum issues

CAREF, CELS, and the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to urge the Argentine government to repeal Decree 942/2024, as it undermines due process guarantees and the right to seek and receive asylum. Furthermore, we emphasized that the State must uphold its obligations regarding the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and, in particular, ensure the competence of the officials responsible for adjudicating asylum claims.

  

IACHR Hearing: State denies responsibility for December 2001  killings and repression 

The Argentine State withdrew its previous acknowledgment of responsibility for the repression carried out in 2001, which it had accepted in 2023. Officials declined to answer questions regarding the State’s new assessment of the events that occurred in December 2001. The events of December 19 and 20, 2001, were an extreme manifestation of state violence following the unjustified declaration of a State of Siege.

  

IACHR: Argentina’s government appears aggressive and ill-prepared in hearings on human rights protections

The representative from the La Libertad Avanza administration claimed poverty is decreasing but could not provide any specifics regarding social policies for children and adolescents. Nor did he address the provision of medical supplies to guarantee sexual and reproductive health. Additionally, he denied the existence of gender-based violence. During the hearing on memory policies, he attacked human rights organizations, accusing them of seeking revenge for the last military dictatorship.

  

Milei’s government fails to guarantee children’s rights

This is what the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in its evaluation of Argentina. The Committee expressed concern about the official decision not to distribute food and funds to soup kitchens and community spaces. It also criticized the increase in child poverty, the repression of protests and the bill to lower the age of criminal responsibility.

  

The Government reaffirmed its policy of criminalizing protests and defended its use of repression before the IACHR

During a public hearing requested by human rights, labor, and social organizations, representatives from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations expressed their concerns about the use of force, arbitrary detentions, the Ministry of Security’s protocol, and the stigmatization of demonstrators and social organizations.

  

We denounced the restrictions on the right to protest before the IACHR and the UN: detentions combined with an arbitrary and dangerous escalation of punitive measures

This came after the repression of thislast week’s protest against the “Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines” Bill in Congress. More than 30 people were arbitrarily detained and later accused by the prosecution of serious crimes against democratic order, echoing the government’s accusations of terrorism and an attempt to overthrow the government.

  

With more than 1,700 signatures from organizations, we condemn the protocol against protest before the UN and the IACHR

Jointly with trade unions, social movements, human rights organizations, and entities focused on social, trade, environmental, indigenous, migrant, transfeminist, religious, children’s, student, and political causes, we have requested international mechanisms to demand the Argentine State stop the implementation of new regulations that seek to restrict and repress public protest. These submissions were also supported by 15,000 individual signatures.

  

We filed a complaint against a company in the Techint Group for the disappearance of two human rights defenders in Mexico

The complaint was filed jointly with their families and organizations from Mexico and Luxembourg. We requested that urgent and necessary measures be taken in the search for lawyer Ricardo Lagunes Gasca and Antonio Díaz Valencia, who have not been heard from since mid-January. They disappeared after a community assembly regarding the Ternium company’s failure to make payments to the community for its mining activity.

  

Brazil: the threat of the anti-democratic far right

The move to action by these groups is a call for reflection and urgent action. What happens when democracies provide the tools and possibilities for some groups to seek to limit or do away with those same democracies? And what tools do we have to defend democracy in the face of attacks like this one?

  

Milagro Sala: New complaint submitted to Inter-American System

We submitted our complaint against the Argentine State for the process of harassment and criminalization that Sala and the Tupac Amaru organization have suffered since her arrest in 2016. Government policy in Jujuy reaches much further, seeking to demobilize and limit the right to protest.

  

AMIA attack: We ask that Argentina be held responsible and the case be sent to the Inter-American Court

On November 11, a pleading hearing in the AMIA case took place at the 174th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), held in Quito, Ecuador. The participants in the hearing included Diana Wassner de Malamud and Adriana Reisfeld, from the Memoria Activa association of family members of AMIA victims, as well as … Continued

  

25 years without justice for the AMIA bombing

The scheming behind the AMIA case is still present and explains many of the problems that concern us today. The pacts between the judicial, political, intelligence and media sectors that built the impunity around the bombing have never been broken, nor have ways of doing things been transformed.

  

The Global Compact for Migration was adopted

More than 160 UN member countries endorsed the Global Compact for Migration at an intergovernmental conference held on December 10-11. This agreement includes some important advances, above all in a context of growing xenophobia and nationalism in Latin America and the world.

  

Militarization of the region at the IACHR

The militarization of public security is on the rise across the Americas, with very troubling consequences. For that reason, 17 organizations from 10 countries requested a regional hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which will be held on December 6.

  

Urgent action needed over US threats to the International Criminal Court

US National Security Adviser John Bolton made explicit and concrete threats against ICC judges, prosecutors and personnel if they proceed with an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan. A group of national and international organizations requested that the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights take urgent action in response. Our joint letter to him follows.

  

Grave human rights crisis in Nicaragua

The repression of social protest carried out by Nicaraguan security forces and para-police groups has left at least 273 people dead and 1800 injured in the last three months. What started with demonstrations against a pension reform has ballooned into a human rights crisis.

  

Treating migration as a security problem violates human rights

During the final round of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, 40 organizations urged UN member states to ensure that the accord fully incorporate a rights-based approach. The last draft includes changes that reinforce a focus on control and security. If this is validated, countries will have wasted a historic opportunity to fuel a paradigm shift.