The United Nations requested on Friday that the Argentine government investigate the police crackdown on the retirees’ march last Wednesday, especially the shooting of photojournalist Pablo Grillo, who remains in intensive care. The request comes on the heels of statements made by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich justifying law enforcement’s actions and saying that the government would not conduct any internal investigation into the Grillo incident.

A statement published by Jan Jarab, Representative of the Regional Office for South America of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, read that his office had received information showing that “participants in the demonstration were exposed to indiscriminate use of force by the authorities.”

“We urge the Argentine authorities to diligently investigate the events that occurred at a protest on March 12 in Buenos Aires,” the press release said. “In particular, we are concerned about the health condition of Pablo Grillo, a photographer who was hit by a tear gas canister in his skull.”

“Many demonstrators were elderly people who peacefully demanded social rights in retirement and health,” Jarab added.

The Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (CPM, for its Spanish initials), a public organization that promotes and implements public policies of historical memory and human rights, called the crackdown “the most brutal and violent” police repression to take place since 2001.

“The violence of the security forces — the navy and the military police, as well as the Federal [Police] — has been unheard of, even advancing and firing rubber bullets and tear gas at people who did not react to the police violence,” CPM head Roberto Cipriano told the Herald during the march, with the air next to Congress still thick from the tear gas.

According to their tally, at least 672 people were injured and 114 people were arrested, including a 12 and a 14-year-old who were walking through the place on their way home from school.

All those arrested were promptly released by Judge Karina Andrade. The Security Ministry filed a criminal complaint requesting that Andrade’s court be declared as acting out of jurisdiction. The ministry added that it was considering filing a complaint against her at the Magistracy Council, the body in charge of naming and suspending judges.

Bullrich justified law enforcement’s actions in two separate interviews. “One cannot hold [security] forces responsible for the legal action of repressing the destruction that the troublemakers were carrying out,” Bullrich told A24 channel after being asked if she would encourage an investigation against the gendarme who shot Grillo. The photojournalist was shot by an unidentified gendarme with a tear gas canister that fractured his skull. 

In a separate interview with LN+, she said the gendarme shot “as the manuals say” and that she would not open an internal investigation.

However, two independent investigations by NGO Mapa de la Policía (Police Map) and newspaper La Nación found that the tear gas canister was shot in a straight line against a barricade where Grillo was taking the picture. The instruction manual indicates that those canisters should be shot upwards.

Instead of opening an investigation against the security forces, Bullrich’s ministry filed a complaint against protestors, accusing them of “sedition, attack against the constitutional order and democratic life, and aggravated illicit association.”

The complaint claimed that organized groups — “professionals of violence” including alleged members of violent football groups known as barrabravas, union leaders, and politicians — were paid to “provoke disturbances” by confronting the police and generating “repression” (the quotation marks appear in the original).

“Violence appeared masked as ‘social protest’ when in reality its clear objective was to ‘destabilize’ the government of President Javier Milei,” the complaint said.