Elderly citizens and a priest attacked by police during protest in Argentina

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – A massive protest of retirees against the insufficient adjustment of their pensions received on Mar. 12 the support of soccer fans and social movements in Buenos Aires.

Although the elderly citizens thought they would be safer with the presence of the other social segments, the demonstration was met with fierce repression by the government. Even a priest ended up being beaten. A number of Catholic voices criticized the police actions.

According to Spanish-born Father Francisco Olvera, popularly known as Padre Paco, a group of retired men and women have been demonstrating in front of the Argentine Congress every Wednesday over the past weeks. They demand the end of the delay for the adjustment of their pensions and the application of adequate raises, so they can recover the purchasing power they had before the unbalance provoked by high inflation rates over the past years.

“President Javier Milei vetoed a bill presented by some Congressman with the goal of raising the pensions. The Senate kept the veto. So, the group decided to protest every week there,” Paco told Crux.

Nowadays, the initial income of a retiree corresponds to $300. Experts estimate that it should amount to at least two times that value, considering the basic costs an older person has every month in Buenos Aires. Besides that, Milei’s administration restricted the distribution of free medicine, something that has been also impacting aged people.

“Eight out of 10 retirees are living in poverty. People who worked their whole lives and paid for their retirement plan are now facing that kind of injustice. It’s only cruel,” Paco said.

Every Wednesday the retirees have been facing police violence, he added, saying that the agents even throw tear gas on them. That’s why the heads of many soccer fan organizations decided to give them support, as well as social activists.

Even before the scheduled time for the beginning of the protest – 5 PM – the police had already started to shoot rubber bullets and turn on the hoses of pressurized water aiming at demonstrators. The repression escalated when a large group of soccer fans wearing Boca Juniors jerseys arrived.

After each attack, some of the protesters would regroup, set fire to garbage cans and throw rocks on the policemen. But the violence of the local and of the federal police was unprecedented, as many demonstrators told the Argentine press.

At some point, the police intensified the use of tear gas. A large group looked for refuge by the door of a parking lot, including Paco.

“I attended the manifestation with five colleagues of our church. One of them, Carlos, was taking care of me the whole time, like he was my bodyguard. We were on the sidewalk and the police forces wouldn’t let you cross the street. That was when I saw Carlos being arrested,” Paco said.

He ran to reach the police agents and said that they shouldn’t detain Carlos, given that he hadn’t committed any crime. “I told them: ‘If you want to detain somebody, please take me instead of him’,” he added.

The policemen hit Paco and threw him to the floor. He was ready to be arrested when he heard a superior officer say: “No, that one is a priest.”

“I’m sure I was being monitored by them all the time,” he said.

The agents took Carlos under custody, along with more than 100 people. By 2 AM, a judge decided that all suspects should be released. The detained will have to face charges like resistance to the authority.

One of the Catholic groups that expressed solidarity for the demonstrators was the Priests for the Option for the Poor. Padre Paco is one of its members.

“Seeing – as anyone who cares to see it can – a police officer assaulting a defenseless elderly woman with a club and then hiding among dozens of uniforms, not only reveals the subject’s cowardice, but also the need for blood that Minister [Patricia] Bullrich manifests on a daily basis,” said the statement of the group.

It continued by saying that they repudiate injustice, violence, and the “current impoverished model that is proud of reducing inflation, which is only sustainable with the impoverishment and the indebtedness that follow.”

The note also mentioned the unjustified detentions of protestors and the “lack of independence between the State’s powers.”

Bishop Marcelo Margni of the Diocese of Avellaneda-Lanús is among the members of the clergy who expressed their views on-line. In a post on X, Margni asked for the immediate halt of repression.

He said that “violence will not be extinguished without the reversion of inequality and social exclusion.”

“Without social justice the conflicts will keep growing […] because an unfair system fuels the bad and undermines the basis for peace and development.”

Other Catholic entities, like the Social Pastoral of the Diocese of Merlo-Moreno, also criticized the State repression.

For Padre Paco, fortunately there has been a growing level of consciousness among many Catholics and even non-Catholics when it comes to the government’s measures for the economy, usually detrimental to the poor.

“But it’s something that takes some time. It’s not a fast shift in the people’s minds,” he said.