Amnesty International, together with the Argentine North East Lawyers Organization (ANDHES), submitted an urgent appeal to the United Nations (UN) on Thursday on behalf of human rights lawyer Alberto Elías Nallar in Jujuy, who was arrested last month under charges of “treason.”
In the petition, which they sent to the UN’s Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the organizations condemned the “constant criminalization of people who demonstrate” against Jujuy’s constitutional reform.
On June 15, the government of Jujuy, led by governor Gerardo Morales, passed a heavily-contested constitutional reform after which thousands of people started protests that were violently thwarted by the police. The new text forbids roadblocks as a valid form of protest and gives the provincial government further rights over natural resources — which the communities say endangers the ownership of their lands.
At least 130 protestors, lawyers, and activists have been arrested since the demonstrations began. Irregularities and excessive use of force were recorded in the actions of the security forces, and the protests continue at the time of writing. Nallar is not the only detained lawyer who was defending people arrested for protesting — Néstor Ariel Ruarte, Vicente Casas, Roberto Carlos Aleman, and Alicia Chalabe were also arrested. Last month, Argentina’s Human Right Secretariat filed a preventive habeas corpus petition on their behalf.
According to the court order mandating for Nallar’s arrest, he was detained because he appeared at two roadblocks and “publicly instigated the perpetrators of these illegal acts to continue interrupting public services, instigating them to also riot and commit acts of treason, rebelling against the provincial Constitution.”
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https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/08/trial-monitoring-protect-right-fair-trial
Argentina: Jujuy: Amnesty International condemns lawyer’s detention before UN
