Argentine political prisoner Milagro Sala reports mistreatment, her fellow activists tortured
Argentine indigenous rights activist Milagro Sala made an official report to the local public prosecutor's office in which she declared being slapped, kicked, and pinched by guards, as well as receiving death threats from prison officials.
Sala stated in the report that fellow members of her Tupac Amaru Association at the prison - all women - have suffered repeated beatings, have sustained fractures, and vomit blood. They, according to Sala, "often scream at night to plead for a stop to the torture."
Arbitrary detention
Imprisoned without charges 16 months ago on orders from Jujuy Province Governor Gerardo Morales, Sala remains in prison on "illicit association" charges over a 2009 egg-lobbing incident against Morales which has not been linked to Sala and in which there were no injuries.
Citing a lack of evidence and serious irregularities such as the use of bribed witnesses, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, currently visiting Argentina, ruled on October 21 that Sala's detention is in fact arbitrary, and urged Argentine President Mauricio Macri (a close ally of Morales) to release her immediately.
Calls for her release were echoed by the OAS, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations.
Sala's report was also filed before the UN Working Group during their visit to the Alto Comedero prison on May 10. The prison official said by Sala to have directed the beatings - deputy director of the prison, Patricia Balcarce - had been moved to another facility just before the UN visit.
The judge overseeing Sala's case, Gastón Mercau, and other court officials corroborated the injuries detailed in Sala's report both to herself and her fellow inmates - including some that required hospitalization for torn ligaments and bone fractures. The judge has refused any motions on their behalf however, including all habeas corpus motions.
Mercau was appointed judge and assigned the case by Jujuy Supreme Court Justice Clara de Langhe de Falcone, his mother-in-law and one of four justices Morales added to the court last year.
Echoes of the last dictatorship
Horacio Verbitsky, the head of Argentina's most prominent human rights organization, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), called on the Argentine Supreme Court to free Sala and her fellow Tupac Amaru detainees.
"Morales, his appointee Justice Falcone, and their allies ignore the UN Working Group's calls for her release; one even suggested they visit Syria instead," Verbitsky said. "This kind of reaction echoes that of the last dictatorship during the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) fact-finding visit in 1979."
The IACHR report from that visit, published in 1980, detailed widespread human rights violations committed during the "Dirty War" waged against leftist dissidents a few years earlier - something the dictatorship had denied up to then.
The IACHR arrives in Argentina on Thursday.
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Milagro Sala and Pope Francis in happier days; Francis has expressed concern over the Sala case.[/center]