Amnesty International Report 2005 - Argentina

Covering events from January - December 2004

There were numerous complaints of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement and prison officers. Treatment of detainees amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Progress was made in bringing to justice those responsible for past human rights violations in the context of Operation Cóndor.

Background

Despite some recovery from the recent economic crisis, poverty and unemployment remained high. According to the Statistics and Census Institute the unemployment rate in 2004 was 19.1 per cent and 70 per cent of the working people earned less than the minimum required to cover an average family's food expenses.

Ill-treatment of demonstrators

Protests by piqueteros (unemployed workers) continued during the year, some turning violent. Piqueteros set up roadblocks and in some cases occupied workplaces. Demonstrators and popular leaders were arrested and charged. Several of them were released but most were charged and awaiting trial at the end of the year. Arrested demonstrators complained of ill-treatment.

• In October, more than 30 people detained by the police and army following demonstrations in Caleta Oliva, Santa Cruz Province, filed judicial complaints stating that members of the provincial police and the gendarmerie hooded them, kicked and punched them and beat them with sticks. According to reports some sustained fractures as a result of blows to the face.

Ill-treatment

Ill-treatment of detainees, including minors, in police stations was reported. There were repeated reports of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in provincial jails, including in Buenos Aires and Mendoza Provinces. Investigations into such allegations were subject to long delays and there were concerns that they were not independent or exhaustive.

• Seventeen prisoners died in Mendoza prison in suspicious circumstances. There were reports that prisoners were kept in extremely overcrowded conditions with poor sanitary facilities and inadequate medical care. Inmates also complained that prison guards beat them and imposed harsh and degrading punishments, such as making detainees stand naked for hours. In September reports appeared in the press of statements made by the Mendoza provincial authorities criticizing the work of human rights lawyers who provided legal advice to prisoners' families and submitted official complaints at the provincial, national and international level about deteriorating prison conditions and the ill-treatment of prisoners.

• In November the Inter-American Court of Human Rights called on Argentina to protect the lives and physical integrity of all detainees. It urged the authorities to investigate complaints of ill-treatment, identify those responsible and apply the appropriate punishments.

• In November, following its examination of Argentina's periodic report, the UN Committee against Torture issued its conclusion and recommendations. These highlighted how the discrepancy between the large number of torture and ill-treatment complaints and the very few convictions in such cases "contributes to the prevailing impunity" on this issue.

Operation Cóndor

Positive steps were taken during the year to investigate past human rights violations committed in the context of Operation Cóndor, a plan jointly organized by six South American military governments in the 1970s and 1980s. In July, a federal judge ordered the arrest of 12 former members of the armed forces. In August the Supreme Court ruled, in the case of the killing of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in 1974, that there was no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity.