Argentina’s increasingly tense social climate and the dangers of President Javier Milei’s aggressive rhetoric have been thrust into the spotlight after it emerged that a human rights activist had been the victim of a brutal sexual assault.
The victim, a member of the H.I.J.O.S human rights group, was brutally assaulted at her home in La Plata, Buenos Aires Province, by assailants earlier this month who identified themselves by using the slogan of President Javier Milei, according to reports.
The news emerged Thursday, on the eve of the annual march commemorating the coup that brought the military junta to power some 48 years ago.
Rights groups and politicians expressed horror at the news, which H.I.J.O.S described as a targeted “political attack.”
The activist – who is not ready to reveal her identity – "was tied up, beaten and sexually abused" by two armed men who forced their way into her home in a "political attack motivated by her human rights and feminist militancy," denounced the organisation that seeks to recover the identity of babies appropriated during the dictatorship.
The victim was attacked upon entry into her home after returning from work. The assailants were waiting for her and sexually abused and threatened her with death before leaving the message: "We did not come to rob you but to kill you, we’ve been paid to do that."
Before leaving, they scrawled on a wall: “VLLC” – a reference to “Viva la libertad, carajo,” Milei’s trademark political slogan.
"We know you work in human rights and we want you to shut up, next time we're going to kill you," the attackers allegedly said, according to H.I.J.O.S. member Diego López Torres.
Owing to the repercussions of this case, Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni was asked on Thursday morning about the attack and the government’s reaction to it.
“We expect the courts to advance with the clarification so that those responsible pay for their actions,” he said.
‘We know you’
The victim alleges that the attack took place on March 5, earlier this month.
After denouncing the incident to the police and in court, H.I.J.O.S. publicly denounced on Thursday morning the “attempt” on the militant’s life. In the complaint, the victim notes that nothing was taken from her home apart from documentation linked to her world with the rights group.
According to reporting by the Pagina/12 newspaper, it was subsequently confirmed that the lock had been forced prior to her return home. The woman’s neighbours said that a few days previously and using different excuses, men had been asking after her and where she lived.
No sooner had she come in than she “was seized by the throat and arms, preventing her from moving or speaking,” according to the police complaint made by the young woman the morning after the attack, as quoted by Pagina/12.
The assailants were two men with firearms. While one pinioned her, the other allegedly threatened her, saying: “Don’t speak ever again, look what happens to you when you do. We know you work for human rights. We haven’t come to rob anything, we’re paid to do this, we’ve come to kill you.”
Her hands and feet were bound with barbed wire before she was gagged. She was ordered to turn over and lie on her front and when she refused, they beat her up, the victim alleges. They took her to her bedroom, threw her onto the bed face down and sexually abused her, the newspaper reported.
“We’re going now, if you scream, we will return and put a bullet through your head,” they warned her before leaving the flat.
When the young woman could free herself, she saw that they had left written on the wall: “VLLC ñoqui” – a combination of Milei’s famous slogan and the word used in Argentina to refer to state employees who do not work.
The young woman “was attacked by two individuals who were waiting for her inside her home after forcing the door and entering illegally. She was tied up, beaten up, sexually abused and suffered death threats from her captors,” denounced H.I.J.O.S. in a statement.
‘Political attack’
H.I.J.O.S. demanded the clarification of what, they insisted, was “a political attack motivated by her human rights and feminist militancy.” The group linked the attack to the Milei government’s rhetoric surrounding human rights issues and the dictatorship era.
“These events are clearly correlated with the actions and hate speech expressed daily by this country’s top authorities in an incitement to violence against us human rights militants.
“We in HIJOS demand immediate clarification by the Judicial Branch, holding the national government responsible for these crimes.
“Just days away from a new anniversary of the (1976) coup, we affirm what our people said: Never Again, Memory, Truth and Justice, always," read the communiqué.
Agustín Cetrángolo, a member of the H.I.J.O.S. national network, said in an interview Thursday that the group had found safe lodgings for the victim in order to avoid her returning home.
In an interview with El Destape, Cetrángolo detailed: "We have corroborated the prior intelligence, going around ringing doorbells in the previous days to find her."
Cetrángelo mentioned that "there were valuables in the house but they took nothing, only files of the H.I.J.O.S grouping."
“They are not denialists, they are promoters of state terrorism. They want to demobilise us by scaring us but fear will not paralyse us,” said the campaigner. “The government is responsible for this, at the very least for inciting violence against human rights organisations."
‘Legion of trolls’
President Milei had not commented on the incident at press time, though many of his supporters online sought to cast doubt over the attack and question its veracity.
The ‘@TraductorTeAma’ account on the X social network, one of Milei’s most vocal supporters online, claimed the incident was a Kirchnerite invention, writing: “We don’t believe them at all.”
The Unión Cívica Radical were among the political parties to condemn the attack, expressing solidarity with the victim in a statement on X and calling for “the punishment of those responsible.”
News of the incident comes just two days after the Marea Editorial publishing house, which specialises in human rights, denounced a digital campaign by “a legion of trolls” who defended the dictatorship in response to a publication about the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.
"The ideological tension that today characterises the political climate in Argentina escalates in all spheres and Marea's networks were no exception," the publishing house said in a statement.
The shocking attack comes amid a politically tense climate because of the government's position on the dictatorship, which human rights organisations and parties from the centre-left consider "denialist."
Both Milei and his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel – who is close to the military and has relations with a number of jailed dictatorship-era criminals – question the number of disappeared agreed upon by human rights organisations (30,000) and claim that the real figure is far less (around 8,700).
Unconfirmed reports this week claimed that the government intends to announce a decree on Monday ordering that all military personnel convicted of crimes during the dictatorship and who are aged over 70 will be entitled to serve out the rest of their sentence under house arrest.
Defence Minister Luis Petri denied those reports in a press conference on Thursday.
According to reports on Thursday, the government is making a video to mark March 24 that will outline the Milei administration's position. It is expected to include a call for a "complete memory" of the era – a remark linked to the two demons theory that downplays state terrorism and has been voiced regularly by Villarruel.
Since 2020, 77 attacks related to dictatorship denialism have been registered, six of which occurred so far this year, according to the Registro de Ataques de Derechas Argentinas Radicalizadas (RA-DAR) (“Registry of Attacks by Radicalised Argentine Right-wingers”).
– TIMES/NA/AFP
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