Argentine Supreme Court rules Milagro Sala cannot be held in prison; move to house arrest ordered [View all]

[sandensea]

The Argentine Supreme Court ruled today that social activist Milagro Sala cannot be held in prison, and must be returned to house arrest.

The decision upholds a July 28 ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which had argued her already poor health could worsen should she continue being held in “preemptive custody” in Jujuy’s Alto Comedero Prison.

IACHR rulings are legally binding in Argentina per a 1984 agreement.

Sala, 53, has been in prison since her arrest on January 16, 2016, for “instigating criminal activity and disorder” after setting up camp in front of the provincial government building protesting a decree defunding her neighborhood association, Tupac Amaru.

The arrest was ordered by Jujuy Province Governor Gerardo Morales, a long-standing political enemy of Sala’s.

Although she was cleared of the initial charges a few days after the events took place, Sala has remained in custody since. Further accusations of fraud and extortion were brought against her while she was in prison due to the original charges.

Provincial prosecutors have provided no evidence in nearly two years, however, and both the IACHR and the UN consider her two-year detention to be arbitrary.

The indigenous rights activist had already been granted house arrest on August 31 of this year, pursuant to the IACHR ruling a month earlier. A local judge revoked the benefit on October 14, however, arguing she had broken the imposed rules to her arrest by – allegedly – refusing to undergo medical checks.

Critics point instead to an interview held days earlier in which she criticized the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration - an ally of Governor Morales - for the death of 28 year-old artist Santiago Maldonado while military police forces charged an indigenous protest camp in Patagonia on August 1.

A similar incident on November 25 resulted in the death of 21 year-old Rafael Nahuel, who was shot in the back by the same federal forces.

At: http://www.thebubble.com/supreme-court-milagro-sala-ruling/

Argentine political prisoner Milagro Sala