Human rights watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published reports critical of the anti-protest protocol launched by Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich in December 2023. The minister accused Amnesty of protecting criminals in response.

The protocol authorizes federal security forces to clamp down on protests or marches carrying out any form of roadblock. It has been heavily questioned since its inception and early implementation for criminalizing Argentines’ right to protest.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report that Bullrich’s protocol “in practice, criminalizes any disturbance to traffic arising from a demonstration” and gave “police broad powers.” The report highlighted that, in June, during a massive protest outside Congress against the flagship Ley Bases, police assaulted protesters, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas as well as throwing punches.

“Police arrested 33 people that day, the last of whom was released in September,” the report said.

The report said Milei’s first year in office was characterized by “new human rights challenges,” such as “cuts to social program funding, obstacles to people’s ability to exercise the freedom of peaceful assembly, and hostile official rhetoric against journalists and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.” 

In December, Amnesty said in a report titled “Dissent in Risk” that, after surveying 15 demonstrations throughout 2024, the “state response was characterized by the excessive use of force.” According to the report, the protocol resulted in 1155 injured people, 33 people with impacts of rubber bullets to the head or face. Some suffered severe damage to their vision as a result. Fifty journalists were also injured while covering demonstrations, and 73 people were criminalized for participating in protests.

The NGO added that the cases could be underreported, as the Security Ministry “has not published and even on several occasions has denied or provided partial information on the operations and police actions.” Amnesty said this evidenced “the government’s lack of transparency.”

In an interview with Radio Rivadavia on Monday, Bullrich said that Amnesty International’s report “is pure ideology — the ideology of always protecting victimizers.” 

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“They come out with a report like this because they are on the side of the criminals. It is as clear as that,” Bullrich said, claiming the administration ended pickets with minimal violence. “Amnesty International doesn’t understand anything.”

“Yes, we understand,” Amnesty replied in a post on X. “We understand that governments get angry with our work. We also understand that we touch a nerve when we expose abuses.”

They highlighted how a young girl was teargassed at a protest in front of Congress in September.

“A fake video was disseminated that sought to shift responsibility for the tear gassing of a girl to a protester,” they wrote, adding that evidence demonstrated that the one who had attacked the girl was a policeman acting under Bullrich’s Anti-Protest Protocol.

While the anti-protest protocol has been met with widespread condemnation, Milei’s administration as a whole has also been criticized for human rights violations.

In June, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said measures enforced by the Milei administration are detrimental to human rights. In December, Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo released an end-of-the-year report criticizing the axing of memory policies, saying the government carried out “regressive measures” that “endanger” the process of memory, truth, and justice regarding the state terrorism crimes committed between 1976-1983 in Argentina.  

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