Strong riots in Argentine city after the return to strict quarantine due to the coronavirus

The province argentina de Formosa registered serious incidents this Friday after the local police harshly repressed protesters who were protesting in rejection of the return to the hardest phase of isolation due to the pandemic of coronavirus.

The Government of this province had already been questioned for preventing the entry and exit of people from its territory due to the pandemic and for installing isolation centers that led to questions from national and international human rights organizations.

This time the province had established a return to preventive and compulsory social isolation in the provincial capital from noon yesterday until March 18, by which driving without permission is prevented, interurban transport is suspended and only workers are excepted essential, such as health and police personnel.

In response, neighbors and local merchants who do not want to close their stores again due to the decline in the economy decided to march towards the government house to protest the measure.

The Police set up a fence to prevent merchants and neighbors from approaching the headquarters of the provincial Executive.

But the clashes between the protesters with the police led to a harsh repression by the Police.

To prevent the protest from unfolding, the police repressed the people with rubber bullets, shovels, kicks and fire hydrant trucks in the middle of the smoke generated by tear gas.

The images of wounded with arms and chests bloody by rubber bullets and victims of blows were multiplied by social networks and local media.

“There are injured citizens, councilors and journalists attacked and detained. I hold the governor (Gildo) Insfrán responsible for the consequences of the violence and I urge the national government to urgently take action on the matter and guarantee the rule of law in the province ”, Luis Naidenoff, a national senator for Formosa from the Juntos por el Cambio party, tweeted.

Together for Change is the main opposition coalition to the government of the Peronist Alberto Fernández, which is an ally of the Peronist Insfrán.

While the protest and then the official repression were taking place, Insfrán inaugurated a headquarters of the Judicial Power and the Santa Teresita institute, in the Las Lomitas neighborhood, according to the governor on his Twitter account.

After the riots, the tension continued in the province and the protesters called on social networks for a new march this afternoon to get the measure reversed.

Yesterday in the capital of Formosa only 17 cases of coronavirus were detected. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the pandemic, the province has recorded 1,333 cases, about 220 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the national Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities released a statement on its Twitter account where “Describes the serious deterioration of freedom of expression in Formosa”, And detailed that today the journalist Maxi Galarza had been wounded and the journalist Julieta González, detained, which are added to previous abuses.

A series of complaints

Since the beginning of the pandemic, on March 20 of last year, the national government has imposed restrictions and prohibitions on movement.

But in the province of Formosa it was denounced “the situation of the stranded”, People that the province prevented from entering its territory until the Supreme Court of Justice ordered their entry last November.

Meanwhile, earlier this year there were complaints from politicians, such as Naidenoff, and human rights organizations about the situation of people held in isolation centers.

The Argentine Secretary of Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla, assured after a visit to the province at the end of January that “human rights are not systematically violated in the province of Formosa.”

At the end of February, the Supreme Court required the province of Formosa to provide it with a report on the situation and operation of the isolation centers that it established in its territory during the pandemic and the protocols for the protection of human rights that they must respect. provincial authorities.