Defence lawyers for those accused of carrying out a controversial ‘escrache’ protest against La Libertad Avanza deputy José Luis Espert have demanded their immediate release from custody.
Together with CELS (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales) rights group and political groupings, the lawyers demanded “the release of those detained,” assuring that they are the targets of “political, judicial and media persecution.”
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich announced Wednesday the arrest of Alesia Abaigar, the director of Sensitivity Training and the Promotion of Rights in the Buenos Aires Province Ministry for Women & Diversity, for being presumably implicated in the attack with animal excrement on Espert’s home.
“By day she works in the Buenos Aires Province Ministry for Women and Diversity and at night she hurls shit at the home of deputy Espert,” expressed Bullrich in her social networks when making Abaigar’s arrest public.
The minister went on to question the budget of the provincial portfolio and its lack of concrete results: “A Ministry with an enormous budget and the only result is the upkeep of criminals,” she said.
“One Kirchnerite militant has been detained and we’re going for another,” she added ominously.
The statements drew criticism from Bullrich’s political rivals, who accused her of targeting opponents based on their ideology. They observed that the alleged crime was being overplayed and was barely a criminal offence.
Diego Molea, one of the defence lawyers of Alesia Abaigar, Iván Díaz Sánchez, Aldana Sabrina Muzzio, Candelaria Monte Cató, Joaquina Santos and Eva Mieri, assured that the offence attributed to the arrested “is a misdemeanour at most.”
“San Isidro federal judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado [who is in charge of the case] feels that she has the jurisdiction to take up a case of tossing shit on the pavement, instead of occupying herself, as she should, with other matters and other federal crimes which worry us so much in this country, like drug-trafficking, for example," he stated.
The lawyer who represents Mieri, confirmed to Noticias Argentinas news agency that she remains “detained and denied communication,” awaiting interrogation.
Lawyers and members of Peronismo por la Ciudad expressed their “forceful repudiation” of these “arbitrary” arrests, demanding the resignation of Bullrich as “politically responsible for this authoritarian advance.”
“Such action violates basic constitutional guarantees such as the freedom of expression, due process, the presumption of innocence and even the rule of law since the comrades have been persecuted and arrested while accused of behaviour which, even if they were responsible for it, is not criminal,” they pointed out.
Along the same lines, a spokesperson from CELS told the Noticias Argentinas news agency that Bullrich is “one of the main promoters" of using the full punitive power of the state “to persecute those who protest and political dissidents, together with SIDE” intelligence services.
“Violent house raids, people arrested and handcuffed for a protest. Something which could, at most, be a misdemeanour but today is treated as a serious federal crime. The courts are a government instrument out of all proportion. This selective criminalisation is political persecution. The government is using the punitive machinery of the state to cower militants. The entire political system is starting to be conditioned by these operations,” commented CELS.
Lawyer and social leader Juan Grabois – a former presidential hopeful for the Unión por la Patria coalition – responded via the social networks to the security minister, accusing her of “placing the machinery of the state at the disposal of persecuting people for this petty stuff or protesting.”
“The strongman of Buenos Aires Province, the narco-friendly Espert, went running with his fascist tears to hide under the skirts of the mummy state which he so hates in order to defend him from some girls who supposedly soiled the pavement of his mansion. Pusillanimous,” he concluded.
The left-wing Frente de Izquierda de los Trabajadores–Unidad (FIT-U) also came out against the arrests of the six persons “due to the persecution pushed by the deputy Espert, the minister Bullrich and the federal courts,” showing up on Monday at the press conference of their families and lawyers.
Last Monday “we held a press conference at the Central Courthouse to denounce the detention in a federal prison of Abaigar, accused of having ‘placed shit’ on the pavement of Espert’s house. The policemen who seriously injured my comrade Matias Aufieri, after Espert called for ‘jail or bullets’ for us, enjoy total impunity with the same federal courts,” complained FIT leader Myriam Bregman.
– TIMES/NA/AFP
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