The violence of the Police commanded by the governor of Formosa Gildo Insfrán was revealed on Friday with a brutal repression of citizens who took to the streets to repudiate the return to phase 1 in the capital after an outbreak of coronavirus cases.

Juliet Gonzalez, a journalist for Radio Parque, lived it firsthand. She was one of the people arrested in the middle of the mobilizations. Her case aroused the rejection of FOPEA, ADEPA and Fundación Led.

I was covering the march when I saw that 15 policemen had cornered two boys who I thought were minors. I start taking pictures of them and yelling for them to stop with that attitude because they were kicking their heads when they had already been bent“said the professional.

At that moment, an officer asked her to leave because otherwise they would have the same violent attitude towards her. “I take a picture of that policeman and suddenly I feel a jerk from behind, it was a police officer who takes me out and orders a policewoman to arrest me; those women teased me and dragged me against the wall”, recalled González in dialogue with Marcelo Longobardi in Miter radio.

The woman tried to identify herself on several occasions. She told them she was a journalist. It’s more, a commissioner who was in the area recognized her because he had been interviewed by her. However, she was arrested and transferred to a police station located several kilometers from the conflict zone.

The trip was dramatic. Julieta wanted to know where they were taking her and no one gave her an answer, until at one point she was able to take her cell phone and start broadcasting live on her social networks, which motivated the officers to partially put down their attitude.

At the station, the deputy commissioner tried to kidnap the journalist’s belongings. It was not a routine procedure: what they wanted was to take her cell phone and her camera to erase the material that she had recorded during the bloody repression on Friday.

González, also a lawyer, appealed her knowledge of the laws and her internal strength to avoid the kidnapping of her belongings. Finally, her lawyer arrived and she was able to hand over her things. Finally, she was detained and held incommunicado for seven hours until she was released.

Friday saw the first of three consecutive days of protests in Formosa against the decision to close the capital again in the framework of the coronavirus pandemic. They are mostly traders who are not willing to close the blinds of their stores. In fact, over the weekend most of them resisted the decision and continued to work normally.

Yesterday there were more than five thousand people in the streets and several opposition leaders arrived in the province to participate in the protest and ensure respect for human rights, another of the questioned points of the management of the pandemic in the province of Insfrán.

The governor arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday to meet with Interior Minister Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, who this weekend acknowledged being concerned about institutional violence in Formosa.

The political backroom

The images of the violent police response in the north of the country had their impact within the government, which had hours of confusion as it evaluated how to act in front of a leader from its own space.

The reaction of people from Formosa to the return to phase 1 of the quarantine – preceded by complaints about authoritarian practices and violations of human rights – caused hours of silence in Casa Rosada. The way to put together the defense of Insfrán required time and again fell on justification.

The text of the Human Rights Secretariat aimed to repudiate the repression in Formosa, but attributed it to “members” of the provincial police and not to the local Executive Branch.

From the secretariat directed by Horacio Pietragalla, an official aligned with hard Kirchnerism, spoke of a “smear campaign” against Insfrán, blaming “hegemonic” media and the “political use” that the opposition gave the case.

The Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, shared the statement and completed: “In moments of collective anguish, serenity must prevail. Violence is never the way. And much less institutional violence”.

In tune, the Minister of Security, Sabina Frederic, spoke of “cruelty” with the Government of Formosa, which she described as “inadmissible.”

Alberto Fernández spoke on Saturday. “We are concerned about institutional violence, we have already expressed our discomfort at the way in which the acts that we do not share in the least have developed,” said the President about the protests that led to clashes between protesters and members of the security force who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

He also commented that the situation is being analyzed in Casa Rosada while they maintain a dialogue with the provincial government, but clarified that until that moment he had not spoken with Insfrán.

Insfrán unleashed a new point of conflict and further strained the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition.

The owner of the PRO, Patricia bullrich and opposition legislators Waldo Wolff and Ricardo Buryaile traveled to Formosa as part of a “freedom tour”.

“Insfrán is the model of tyrant endorsed by the President. We are going to support them in this fight for human rights and work,” said the former Minister of Security.

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