Nine United Nations experts sent a letter to Javier Milei’s government expressing their concern about repression in Argentina since December 2023 and warning about the “political characterization of protests by the authorities as acts of terrorism or crimes against national security.”
They also emphasized the “organized and deliberate effort to harass and punish judges in retaliation for their work, which appears to be a direct attack on the independence of the judiciary,” referring to those who ordered the release of protesters.
“We are concerned about the expansion of anti-terrorism financing laws to include vague and overly broad threats to national security, determined at the substantial discretion of the Ministry of Security,” they said. And they warned that “the amendment appears to be aimed at freezing the assets and stigmatizing people who exercise their right to peaceful protest under international law.”
For over a year, various UN special rapporteurs and working groups documented reports of the use of less lethal weapons without protocols, disproportionate police operations, serious injuries to protesters, police violence, arbitrary detentions in inhumane conditions, and preventive prosecutions, including of media workers. Based on these reports, they raised their observations and concerns with the Argentine government.
They also recalled that the right to peaceful assembly is a tool used to recognize and enforce other rights, such as economic, social, and cultural rights, and that States must facilitate and protect the right to protest. “The lack of respect for and guarantee of the right to peaceful assembly is often an indicator of repression,” they stated in the letter, which was made public on July 11 but had been sent two months earlier.
The special rapporteurs who signed the letter are: the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the fight against terrorism; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; together with the independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.