Outcry Over Arrests in Anti-Government Protest Against Milei in Argentina

Controversy Over Arrests in Protest Against Milei in Argentina, NGOs Demand Release of Detainees and Denounce Illegality

Social organizations, opposition parliamentarians, and relatives of the 35 people detained last Tuesday in the context of the protest against the reforms of the Argentine government under Javier Milei have organized a protest today to demand their immediate release. The organizations denounce the illegality of the arrests and claim that law enforcement carried out “a real indiscriminate hunt” throughout the city center once the first incidents erupted in the square in front of the Parliament.

In a statement, they also refute the serious charges against the detainees, ranging from accusations of terrorism to sedition and subversion of the constitutional order. They argue that in this way, “the government, in complicity with the judiciary, is trying to limit the right to dissent and protest.” Among the detainees – some of whom have already been transferred to actual prisons – there are reportedly individuals arrested several kilometers away from the site of the incidents, passersby, students, and ordinary protesters who claim they had no involvement in the unrest.

The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, on her part, has called for harsh justice against those who, she claims, “attempted to carry out a coup” against the institutions.