A Year of Progress in Argentina’s Human Rights Trials

A Year of Progress in Argentina’s Human Rights Trials
By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 26 2012 (IPS) - Although it didn’t receive much media coverage, this year Argentina’s justice system made strides in speeding up human rights cases, and dozens of defendants were convicted, three decades after the end of the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Figures from the “prosecution unit for the coordination and monitoring of cases involving human rights violations committed during the state terrorism” indicate that nearly 400 suspects were tried this year, and that 86 of them were sentenced, 72 of them for the first time.

The accused, mainly former members of the military and former politicians, were charged with crimes against humanity such as kidnapping, illegal detention, torture, sexual violence, theft of the babies of political prisoners, homicide and forced diappearance.

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The trials of those who committed human rights abuses during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship began immediately after the return to democracy. But they were brought to a halt by amnesty laws and pardons in the late 1980s.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/a-year-of-progress-in-argentinas-human-rights-trials/