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Organizations camp out in Buenos Aires to ask for a pardon for Milagro Sala
Augusto Morel Buenos Aires, 21 December (EFE).- While the memory of the previous day’s World Cup madness is still fresh, this Wednesday Buenos Aires returned to its usual demonstration routine; In this case, social, political and trade union organizations rallied to seek a pardon for activist Milagro Sala. Sala, who has been detained for 2,531 days and is considered a “political prisoner” by some sectors, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the crimes of unlawful association, fraud against public administration and extortion, a court sentence ratified by last week the judge of the Supreme Court of Argentina. In that sense, the last resort that social organizations like Tupac Amaru, who ran Sala, is turning to is a presidential pardon, which they hope to achieve through a camp in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, which is on this one Wednesday started and it lasts until Friday. “We believe that President Alberto Fernández should sign the pardon, apart from the power conflict that this might trigger, but it will help the international community to know that we are facing a blatant injustice here,” the national MP told EFE and the union leader Hugo Jasky. Additionally, Yasky pointed out that Fernández “knows perfectly well that Milagro is innocent” and that the president’s opinion resembles that of a “criminal law professor” and not that of a president. “You can’t answer as if you teach a class at the university,” he added. The leader, who is currently under house arrest due to her health condition, was arrested in the northern province of Jujuy on January 16, 2016, a month after then-President Mauricio Macri took office (2015-2019). She was then accused of instigating the riot during a protest against provincial governor Gerardo Morales, then a Macri ally. Supporters of Milagro Sala, elected to the Mercosur Parliament in 2015 by the then Victory Front (Kirchner), accuse Morales of being the “manager of a network of persecution and harassment sustained by the social organizations Jujuy suffer”. For his part, the doctor, militant Peronist and member of the Instituto Patria – a “laboratory of ideas” of Kirchnerism -, Jorge Rachid, believed that Sala would not be eliminated by the “corrupt” judiciary but by politics constitutional instrument that could strengthen the figure of the president. If this does not happen, his funeral is from a political point of view and the freedom that political prisoners have,” Rachid told EFE. The head of state had said this morning that he supported the idea of pardon ruled out because he could only grant them on judgments handed down by the federal courts, which was not the case in the Sala case, which was convicted by one ift regional court. “I am convinced that the entire trial of Milagro Sala was permeated with an inadmissible political overtone, and it seems to me that the solution does not include a pardon because the constitution prohibits it,” the president said in an interview with Radio con Vos. Finally, Rachid announced that the militancy will see the reflection of what a struggle is as they assert their claims in federal courts in Buenos Aires next February 1. “On February 1, we took over the courts as soon as the Judiciary Mass was over to throw out this Supreme Court, which is deeply criminal,” he concluded. EFE aam/cmm/enb (c) EFE agency