Buenos Aires Herald 
Following over a week of protests, police in Jujuy cracked down on protests by social organizations and Indigenous groups against the province’s recent constitutional reform.
Protesters cut off highways across the province, withstanding temperatures below freezing and the police making violent approaches to the intersection of routes 9 and 52, near Purmamarca, on several occasions throughout Saturday. The second round of clashes was the most violent, with rubber bullets fired and over 30 arrests made including a journalist and a left-wing politician.
“The infantry charged us with rubber bullets,” one of the protesters told Télam about the third attack. “Another group of policemen dressed as civilians attacked us over the river area near the road corridor.”
The intersection has been blocked since Friday, when the Jujuy Constitutional Convention surprisingly approved a partial constitutional reform that bans roadblocks as a form of protest. The decision came after over a week of teachers striking in the province calling for higher wages and rejecting the constitutional reform before it was passed. The protests continued despite Governor Gerardo Morales repealing a controversial decree that also sought to limit protests, another point of contention.
Roadblock against the reform
On Saturday, there were three violent police advances at the place where most of the conflict is taking place. The first one was at dawn; the second, the most violent, happened in the afternoon with many injured and at least 30 people arrested.
Yesterday at 3 p.m., Jujuy government authorities attempted to approach the protesters to talk to them, but they left, faced with chants of “Morales, resign.”
At 5 p.m., another group of officers arrived and tried to suppress the protest using tear gas and rubber bullets. Many people were injured during the repression, and 30 people were arrested, including Natalia Morales, one of the leaders of the PTS-Leftist Front, and Luciano Aguilar, an editor of the left-wing newspaper La Izquierda Diario, who was covering the protest.
Last night, an excavator was used to clear the road after dozens of rocks were thrown during the protest. After the authorities’ last clearing attempt, protesters filled the road with rocks to prevent them from advancing. They decided to spend the night there, covered in coats and blankets to endure the ice-cold weather.
Children’s Ombudsman head, Marisa Graham, said last night that she received “complaints about the repression taking place in front of children and teenagers”. She is working with other government entities to ensure no minors are arrested.
Legal consultants also told Télam that those arrested could be indicted for preventing other people from circulating since they were blocking the road.
“No rights are absolute”
Morales defended the ban, saying that the implementation of the right to roadblocks should be discussed “on a national level,” contending that cutting off traffic is a crime according to the Argentine Constitution and the Penal Code.
Morales said to Radio Mitre that article 32 of Jujuy’s constitution “states the right to protest without the requirement of an official permit, as long as it is peaceful and with no weapons involved.”
The newly-reformed constitution explicitly bans all roadblocks and occupation of public buildings during protests because “blocking roads is not a right, it’s a crime”, Morales said, citing Article 194 of in the National Penal Code.
“There are some people who think that blocking a road or a street is a way to protest, so there has to be a law that establishes and sorts out how that right is executed,” Morales said. “No rights, either the ones you or I have that are stated in the Constitution, are absolute.”
The General Confederation of Education Workers (CTERA) has called for a general nationwide strike on June 22 to protest against the clamp-down, call for higher salaries and reject the constitutional reform.
—with information from Télam
