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DESCRIPTION:As part of an international day of action to defend the Workers Party in 
 Argentina and the Piqueteros movement rallies will be held in the US and 
 around the world to demand that the false criminal charges against the PO 
 and Piqueteros leaders be dropped\n\nRally on Monday September 23 at 5PM At 
 Oakland Federal Building\n1301 Clay St.\nOakland\n\n\nGlobal Day Of 
 Action!\nHands Off Argentine Workers Party & Piqueteros Movement\nDrop The 
 Charges Against The PO NOW!\nVictory To Argentina Working Class\n\nThe US 
 supported Javier Milei Argentina government is trying to crush all 
 opposition to its policies of privatization, union busting, and massive 
 austerity and starvation. As part of this agenda, they are seeking to jail 
 the leadership of the Workers Party PO in Argentina and leaders of the 
 Piqueteros unemployed movement.\n\nThe Workers Party and the Piqueteros 
 were the first organizations to publicly protest the Milei government when 
 the government tried to ban all protests with emergency regulations. Milei 
 and the fascists who are in his government want the working class to pay 
 for the crisis of capitalism and have raided their offices and filed false 
 corruption charges against their leaders and supporters and leaders of the 
 Piqueteros movement.\n\nThe government has laid off tens of thousands of 
 public workers, teachers, and are destroying the public services by 
 contracting them out to private looters. It is privatization on steroids 
 and these policies are on the agenda here as well.\n\nThe rise of fascism 
 in Argentina, in Europe, and around the world is connected to the rise of 
 fascism in the US.\n\nThe growing repression directed against students and 
 workers who are protesting on campuses against the US supported genocide in 
 Gaza and the West Bank is part and parcel of what working people face. The 
 US and the AFL-CIO leadership, the the CIA funded AIFLD also organized and 
 supported a military coup in Argentina in 1976 that led to the kidnapping 
 and deaths of thousands of workers and activists. They have blood on their 
 hands and they are now working in Argentina to set in the same agenda 
 including building a US military base in the country.\n\nJoin this global 
 united front campaign to defend the PO and Piqueteros movement and call out 
 the US and Argentinian government which are working together to carry out 
 the policies of capitalism and imperialism.\n\nSponsored by: United Front 
 Committee for A Labor Party, Speak Out Now\n\nTo endorse & for more 
 information, contact: UFCLP info@ufclp.org\n\n\nDown the persecution of the 
 piquetero movement and the Polo 
 Obrero\nhttps://prensaobrera.com/english/down-the-persecution-of-the-piquetero-movement-and-the-polo-obrero\nTo 
 Chamber 1 of the Federal Court of Appeal\n\n\nWe refute the accusations 
 against Polo Obrero and the piquetero movement\n\nPolo 
 Obrero\nSeguir\n\n\nMovilización piquetera\nWE PRESENT THE EVIDENCE THAT 
 PROVES POLITICAL PERSECUTION\n\nDown with the cases that criminalize social 
 protest\n\nThe justice system, the government and the pro-government media 
 have made the criminalization process against piquetero movement in general 
 and particularly against Polo Obrero and Eduardo Belliboni a central part 
 of the country’s political agenda. This dossier is a plea against this 
 process. In the first place, it shows their objective of pushing for the 
 liquidation of the independent organization of the most exploited 
 neighborhoods in the country, in order to discipline Argentinian working 
 class. Secondly, because it is a process that could only go forward by 
 trampling on the right to defense through of all kinds of arbitrariness. 
 Thirdly, because the arguments of the Judge and the Prosecutor are based on 
 lies and obvious falsehoods.\n\nIt is a process organized from the top of 
 political power, which turn all the resources of the intelligence services, 
 an assembly of pseudo journalists in the pay of the government and a 
 judiciary into a battering ram against the organizations that have been at 
 the forefront of the fight against hunger in the last two decades.\n\nBut 
 all lies sooner or later fall under their own weight. In this case, the 
 struggle for the dismissal of the cases against all the comrades goes hand 
 in hand with the struggle to confront a government that is aggravating 
 hunger, misery and the subjugation of the country to the interests of a 
 clique of financial capital and imperialism, against national 
 majorities.\n\nTHE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE OF DISMANTLING PIQUETERO 
 MOVEMENT\n\nMilei’s objective of dismantling the piquetero movement is 
 explicit. Since December 20th, 2023, when the independent piquetero 
 movement, together with the left parties and combative unions and 
 activists, took the streets to confront the government, Milei and Bullrich 
 developed a systematic initiative to break this movement. This policy was 
 the continuity of their electoral campaign, attacking the right to social 
 protest. An attack which manifests today in Roberto de la Cruz Gomez still 
 being in jail for participating in the demonstration against the voting of 
 the reactionary Foundations Law on June 12th.\n\nThe objectives of 
 political attack on the piquetero movement are obvious. In only 6 months 
 Milei’s government has carried out the following measures against the 
 unemployed:\n\n1 – The interruption of food distribution to soup 
 kitchens, which Minister Petovello is carrying out disregarding court 
 rulings.\n\n2 – The freezing of Potenciar Trabajo program payments 
 (78,000 Argentine pesos), which ceased to be automatically updated with the 
 variation of the minimum wage, generating a loss of purchasing power of 55% 
 of the programs.\n\n3 – The massive cancellation of payments to 
 unemployed workers for traveling outside the country, which affected 
 thousands of migrants and led to an appeal for legal protection filed in 
 court by the Polo Obrero.\n\n4 – The non-inclusion of the additional 
 “nexus” and “essential” in the “Back to Work” program and in 
 the “Acompañar” program, generating the reduction of additional 
 benefits that affected thousands of beneficiaries.\n\n5 – The 
 interruption of socio-productive and socio-community inclusion agreements 
 that ended labor inclusion programs.\n\nLET’S DEFEND ORGANIZATION OF THE 
 NEIGHBORHOODS\n\nAs serious as these cuts already are, the objectives of 
 the government go much further. It seeks to eliminate the independent 
 organization that in the last 20 years played an essential role in leading 
 the struggles of the workers and popular movement, attacking the only means 
 working class has to place a limit to the offensives carried out against 
 all its rights. This offensive seeks to alter the balance of forces by 
 annulling the capacity of resistance of the most exploited sector of the 
 working class: the unemployed.\n\nCONTROL OF NEIGHBORHOODS BY DRUG 
 DEALERS\n\nThe first beneficiary of this attack is drug trafficking. The 
 objective of eliminating social and piquetero organizations from the map 
 benefits the advance of drug trafficking in neighborhoods that have been 
 organized for years by piquetero movement. Without any doubt, soup 
 kitchens, social programs and popular organization are a wall against the 
 advance of drug dealers in neighborhoods while repressive forces and Judges 
 pact or turn a blind eye against drug mafias. 70% of Argentinian youth have 
 been thrown into poverty and that can only lead to the reinforcing narco 
 gangs’ cooptation. After the offensive against piquetero movement, the 
 future of popular neighborhoods of the whole country will see itself, more 
 and more, in the mirror of the greater Rosario area, dominated by drug 
 cartels and their assassinations.\n\nTHE CASES AND THE CONTEXT OF 
 PERSECUTION\n\nThe case against the Polo Obrero is a central part of this 
 attempt to dismantle the piquetero movement. It begun with the promotion of 
 an ad hoc channel set up by the State to encourage  accusations against 
 piquetero organizations: line 134. The promotion of this line was part of 
 the Ministry of Security and the national government’s policy to prevent 
 the mobilization announced for December 20, 2023 and to condition future 
 mobilizations against political measures carried out by the 
 government.\n\nBullrich’s Ministry of Security measures against the 
 mobilization:\n\n1 – The implementation of an unconstitutional protocol 
 that seeks to prevent social protest.\n\n2 – Repressive threats, prior to 
 mobilization, in order to avoid people from protesting.\n\n3 – The threat 
 to terminate social programs against those beneficiaries who participate in 
 protests. This threat was transmitted in a message from the national 
 government through different media channels and put on loudspeakers in all 
 train stations and also on the “Mi Argentina” app which manages 
 official state documentation of each person.\n\n4 – Subsequently, a 
 clause was included in the regulation of the new “Back to Work” program 
 to withdraw the plan from those who participate in protests which block 
 transit.\n\nThe government moves forward with direct repression; arbitrary 
 imprisonment of those who participated in the mobilization that took place 
 when Foundations Law was voted in the Congress, also with judicial cases 
 against participants in the mobilizations of December 20 and with 
 restrictions and attacks on the right of workers to strike and organize. 
 The criminal complaint filed by the National State through officials of the 
 Ministry of Security is a further link of all these elements.\n\nTRUMPED-UP 
 CHARGES WITH THE FEDERAL POLICE LOOKING FOR PLAINTIFFS\n\nPolo Obrero’s 
 defense attorneys filed a motion for the nullity of the prosecution due to 
 manifest irregularities and the violation of the principles of innocence, 
 legality, due process, defense at trial, non-discrimination and equality 
 before the law.\n\nAs a result of the complaint filed by the Ministry of 
 Social Development, the courts proceeded to identify the complaints, which 
 in principle were anonymous, reports from the government’s 134 phone 
 line.\n\nOut of a total of 13,000 complaints reported by Patricia Bullrich, 
 (yellow portion on the graph), in the city of Buenos Aires only 7 
 testimonies were identified against different organizations. Only 3 of 
 these were against the Polo Obrero\n\nIt must be stated that these 
 complainants were incited to testify personally by sending Federal Police 
 to their homes. The Prosecutor’s Office and the police forces carried out 
 an intelligence work on the organizations, and pressured and searched out 
 to collect testimonies.\n\nProsecution dismisses testimonies that do not 
 fit its story (Pictures of cell phone messages).\n\nJudge Casanello and 
 Prosecutor Pollicita limited the investigation to the city of Buenos Aires 
 and transferred the rest of the complaints to other courts, that explains 
 the proliferation of cases against popular organizations, which shows a 
 true “State policy” of criminalization.\n\nINTELLIGENCE AND 
 RAIDS\n\nBased on the testimonies of a handful of complaints, the justice 
 system and the Organized Crime Division of the Federal Police proceeded to 
 tap more than 20 telephones. From these phone taps and the intelligence 
 work carried out on soup kitchens, they identified 33 locations to move 
 forward with raids.\n\nJudge Casanello ordered 33 raids that were later 
 extended to around 100 from different courts in different parts of the 
 country, putting in evidence a long term persecution of all social and 
 piquetero organizations around the country.\n\nIn the raid on the 
 headquarters of Polo Obrero on Monteagudo Street, where much of the 
 original “evidence” was found, the cameras were turned off, the 
 witnesses did not enter on time and, in addition, being the headquarters of 
 an association, no prior notice was given. This is the reason why the 
 defense requested for legal nullity.\n\nSubsequently, Judge Casanello 
 proceeded to illegally raid the headquarters of the Partido Obrero 
 (Worker’s Party), saying that he was looking for the headquarters of 
 Editorial Rumbos publishing company, which had already been raided and 
 whose owner had appeared in the case and was in good standing. Although 
 Editorial Rumbos was not found there, the entire premises were searched, 
 taking film and photographic records.\n\nA complaint was filed before the 
 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for this fact, as it is 
 an evident act of political persecution and violation of democratic 
 freedoms in a context of increasing repression and attacks on public 
 freedom, as described above.\n\nA CASE THAT DENIES THE RIGHT TO A DEFENSE 
 AT TRIAL\n\nFrom the beginning, the case was processed in violation of all 
 constitutional guarantees and fundamentally the right to defense:\n\n1 – 
 In the process, the defense was prevented from participating in the 
 testimonial statements, even taking pertinent measures to preserve their 
 identity, depriving attorneys from asking questions and participating in 
 the process in accordance with the law.\n\n2 – The Judge called for 
 hearings without individualizing accusations against each of the accused, 
 and refused to show the evidence supporting the accusation before the 
 hearing, preventing the accused the right to defend themselves.\n\n3 – At 
 the same time, it denied the defense’s request to postpone the hearings 
 in order to guarantee access to evidence.\n\n4 – On the other hand, he 
 denied the request to extend the interviews of Eduardo Belliboni and María 
 Isolda Dotti, requested to show the evidence and explain the work carried 
 out by Polo Obrero based on the agreements with the former Ministry of 
 Social Development. The evidence that the Judge refused to receive, 
 contemplates the completion of 43 construction, refurbishment and 
 improvement works in soup kitchens; training courses, cell phone repair, 
 music, art, sports, Integral Sexual Education, prevention of dengue and 
 covid-19, among others; sanitation of several neighborhoods; productive 
 projects; etc.\n\n5 – After the interviews, the judge proceeded with 
 prosecution of the comrades using the statements of “repentant” 
 witnesses who testified under pressure from the prosecution to initiate 
 criminal proceedings against them. Those testimonies were concealed from 
 the defense until after the deadline for appeals against the indictment, 
 clearly violating the right to defense and constituting a reason for 
 nullity of the prosecutions.\n\nFinally, the judge issued the prosecutions 
 ignoring key evidence: the expertise reports on cell phones and on cameras 
 of the headquarters of Polo Obrero.\n\nThe Judge even acknowledges that the 
 Ministry of Social Development did not send him the report of the audits 
 carried out to verify compliance with agreements. The Judge affirms that 
 Polo Obrero did not comply with this work even though he recognizes that 
 the Ministry, which is a plaintiff in the case, hides the evidence from 
 him. However, he also advances in the prosecutions saying that Polo Obrero 
 did not comply with the foreseen work requirements.\n\nTWO NARRATIVES IN 
 LINE WITH CRIMINALIZATION\n\nJudge Casanello ordered the prosecution of the 
 comrades of Polo Obrero, accusing them of “fraudulent administration”. 
 And, in the case of María Isolda Dotti and Gianna Puppo, he added 
 “coercive threats”. In order to reach these conclusions, the Judge 
 affirms that Polo Obrero defunded the management units and that it did not 
 organize the counterpart work for Potenciar Trabajo program. According to 
 the Judge, instead of this program, only party political activities were 
 required.\n\nAgainst this framework, Prosecutor Pollicita appealed the 
 indictment, arguing that the comrades should also be prosecuted for 
 extortion. With the extortion charges, the Prosecutor intends to raise the 
 sentences up to 20 years and criticizes the Judge for establishing crimes 
 for which “it is possible to get off with probation”. This statement 
 reveals that the central point of the Prosecutor is to establish a 
 conviction and that criminal types adopted must be adapted to this 
 political need.\n\nProsecutor Pollicita starts by saying that prison 
 sentences must be applied and then adapts the focus of the case to this 
 political objective (arriba fotos de informes jurídicos).\n\nThe 
 Prosecutor also requests that Social Development Ministry Officials who 
 signed the agreements with the Polo be summoned for questioning, based on 
 the idea that there was some pact with the Polo Obrero. He ignores that all 
 achievements of the independent piquetero movement were achieved through 
 mobilization and struggle.\n\nIn both cases these are narratives that omit 
 an enormous amount of evidence in the service of the needs of the Milei 
 government and their policy of criminalizing protests.\n\nBoth of them 
 invert reality, presenting popular mobilization as “a denaturalization of 
 aid by the State”, when historically it was the mobilization for social 
 demands that later translated into conquests of the unemployed 
 workers.\n\nTHE EVIDENCE OF THE POLO OBRERO AGAINST THE CHARGES OF 
 FRAUD\n\nIn order to defend his thesis of the Polo Obrero not carrying out 
 the working hours required for payment of the Potenciar Trabajo program, 
 the Judge affirms that work in soup kitchens was not part of the work 
 covered by the program. This falsification of reality is aimed to denigrate 
 the work in soup kitchens carried out by the Polo Obrero all over the 
 country.\n\nIn the Mariano Ferreyra soup kitchen, rations were cooked daily 
 for 600 diners.\n\nIn addition, the Judge did not bother to analyze the 
 evidence of the work carried out by the Polo Obrero in accordance with the 
 agreements signed with the Ministry of Social Development. Agreements that 
 covered, during four years, 6,651 of the almost 65,000 beneficiaries of 
 Potenciar Trabajo that were organized in Polo Obrero. That is to say, a 
 minimum portion of the comrades.\n\nWith the funds provided by those 
 agreements, the Polo Obrero carried out the following 
 activities:\n\nCONSTRUCTION OF 43 COMMUNITY CENTERS\n\nIn these community 
 centers soup kitchens and centers of social activity, productive projects 
 and organization operate in poor neighborhoods throughout the 
 country.\n\nMASSIVE TRAINING COURSES\n\nPolo Obrero carried out massive 
 training courses on Integral Sexual Education, on the rights of working 
 women, and training courses for neighborhood leaders on community issues, 
 such as access to water. At the end of 2020, in the middle of pandemic, 
 certificates were awarded in a massive event in Parque Lezama for hundreds 
 of attendees.\n\nWater courses were a very important resource to organize 
 demands for access to water in dozens of neighborhoods that do not have 
 drinking water, such as in the Villas (slums) of the city of Buenos Aires, 
 in Inflamable in Avellaneda or in Villa Celina in La Matanza, among 
 others.\n\nThe ESI training courses were very important to open the debate 
 for comrades hard hit by poverty and violence against women and that suffer 
 a huge neglect by the State on this matter. Based on these debates, Polo 
 Obrero consciously joined the green wave of the women’s movement, 
 demanding safe and free legal abortion.\n\nJOB TRAINING COURSES\n\nJob 
 training courses in different trades were organized throughout the country. 
 Courses were organized in cell phone repair, computers, vegetable gardens 
 in different parts of the country, and workshops to teach textile, 
 sublimation, graphic and printing activities, among others.\n\nHEALTH 
 CAMPAIGNS\n\nDissemination centers were set up throughout the country to 
 address vital issues neglected by the state. For example, a national 
 campaign against dengue fever was carried out, with the publication of 
 thousands of informative leaflets and house-to-house campaigns.\n\nTEXTILE 
 PRODUCTION WORKSHOPS\n\nGRAPHIC PRODUCTION WORKSHOPS\n\nSUBLIMATION AND 
 PRINTING WORKSHOPS\n\nCULTURAL AND SPORTS ACTIVITIES\n\nCOMMUNITY MEDIA: 
 POLO OBRERO SUPPLEMENT\n\nAs part of the training of community media, more 
 than 50 issues of the Polo Obrero supplement of Prensa Obrera were 
 published, which represented the opportunity for hundreds of comrades to 
 publish for the first-time denunciations of the conditions in their 
 neighborhoods, campaigns on living conditions, demands and the situation of 
 popular neighborhoods throughout the country.\n\nWHO FINANCES WHOM?\n\nThe 
 accusation of fraud is based on a first trick: far from social 
 organizations defrauding the State, it is the effort of the piqueteros’ 
 organizations that are carrying out the tasks that the State should attend 
 to but doesn’t.\n\nFor example, a soup kitchen in the City of Buenos 
 Aires costs 6 million pesos to open and equip. This effort falls almost 
 entirely on popular organizations, because the State does not finance the 
 rents, the pots, the carafes or the ovens. The food, in the case of the one 
 provided by National State, arrives to places that are very far from the 
 points where the soup kitchens are established and it is necessary to pay 
 for them to be carried in trucks.\n\nINPUTS PRICES AS OF AUGUST 
 2024\n\nFIRE EXTINGUISHER 5 KG $ 111.000,00 (all prices in Argentine 
 pesos)\n\nREFRIGERATOR $ 591,476.00\n\nINDUSTRIAL STOVE WITH 2 BURNERS $ 
 122.000,00\n\nINDUSTRIAL SCALE 80KG $ 1.320.000,00\n\nINDUSTRIAL KITCHEN 
 HOOD $ 88.966,00\n\nSTAINLESS STEEL SHELVING $ 522.000,00\n\nFURNACE $ 
 1,305,949.00\n\nSTAINLESS STEEL TABLE $ 166.840,00\n\nFREZZER OF 402 LTS $ 
 847,099.00\n\nALUMINUM GASTRONOMIC PAN 100 LTS. x2 $ 
 687,213.00\n\nGASTRONOMIC STRAINER $ 21,882.00\n\n25 LITER CAPACITY BOWL x2 
 $ 121,270.00\n\nGARRAFA x2 $ 120.000,00\n\nKITCHEN SCALE 10KG $ 
 13.380,00\n\nchopping boards x3 $ 28,563.00\n\nSPOONS x3 $ 
 27.900,00\n\nIRON FRYING PAN N*30 $ 17,750.00\n\nSPICE RACKS $ 
 11.056,00\n\nKITCHEN AXE $ 17,099.00\n\nKITCHEN KNIVES SET $ 
 48.100,00\n\nINITIAL EQUIPMENT COST $ 6,226,923.00\n\nMONTHLY 
 EXPENSES\n\nRENT $ 250,000.00\n\nWATER $ 20,000.00\n\nLIGHT $ 
 29,194.00\n\nABL $ 4,784.00\n\nGAS GARRAFE CHARGE (1X APPROX. DAY) x20 $ 
 200.000,00\n\nMONTHLY CLEANING SUPPLIES\n\nBLEACH x 5LTS x4 $ 
 12.664,00\n\nDETERGENT 5LTS x4 $ 36.000,00\n\nSPONGE x2 $ 
 1.274,00\n\nSHOVEL AND BROOM KIT $ 11.122,00\n\nFLOOR RUG x2 $ 
 2,774.00\n\nBOX OF REMOVABLE GLOVES x2 $ 20.000,00\n\nFIXED MONTHLY EXPENSE 
 $ 587,812.00\n\nAll these costs, which stem from the non-delegable 
 responsibility of the State to guarantee the right to food, are covered on 
 a daily basis with the efforts of popular organizations. These 
 organizations are now being criminalized for asking for voluntary 
 contributions that allow this minimum subsistence.\n\nThe State has ignored 
 the task of providing assistance to the most impoverished population. When 
 the organizations came out to complain, it gave partial and insufficient 
 answers and unloaded the responsibility of organizing the distribution of 
 food to the organizations themselves. Now to those who put the effort to 
 fulfill the task that legally and constitutionally corresponds to 
 them.\n\nWHAT IS EDITORIAL RUMBOS?\n\nAs the Judge was able to verify, none 
 of the accused members of Polo Obrero became rich and all of them live 
 humbly and make a living from their work. Even so, he maintains that Polo 
 defrauded the State through apocryphal invoices. In order to prove this, he 
 distorts reality: he affirms that Editorial Rumbos is a ghost 
 company.\n\nBut Rumbos is a publishing house that published dozens of 
 books, 62 editions of the magazine En defensa del Marxismo and 1620 issues 
 of the newspaper Prensa Obrera. It is a company with real activity, not a 
 political “fund”.\n\nThe accusation of diversion of funds to Rumbos is 
 based on a captious interpretation of the invoicing. In fact, Rumbos 
 invoiced the Civil Association and the Cooperative El Resplandor as  is 
 done in any current purchase, where first the goods are received and the 
 payments are made and finally the invoice is made. The generic invoices 
 that served to feed the media campaign were specified in the 
 remittances.\n\nThe other lye is to say that Editorial Rumbos does not 
 exist is that they did not find “the printing house”. But… A 
 publishing house is not a printing house! A publishing house publishes 
 publications that are then printed by different printers. In the case of 
 Rumbos, most of the sales were for brochures for the courses mentioned 
 above.\n\nTHE INVOICES WERE VALIDATED BY THE AFIP (TAX OFFICE)\n\nThe other 
 accusation that supports the accusation is that of having used apocryphal 
 invoices of the company Coxtex. But at the time of submitting such 
 invoices, for the purchase of computers, they were valid, as stated in the 
 request made to the AFIP. Then, the Ministry of Social Development approved 
 the disbursement reporting and audited in person the activity of the first 
 disbursement of the agreements of the Asociación Civil Polo Obrero and 
 Cooperativa El Resplandor. The Ministry’s approval enabled the second 
 disbursements to be released.\n\nThe judge ignores the machinery that is in 
 front of his face. In the raid on the warehouse he was able to verify the 
 existence of the Heidelberg printing press, however, he doubts its 
 existence.\n\nThe Judge incorporates as part of the accusation the study of 
 who cashed the checks. However, he omits that the program established the 
 possibility of paying with bearer checks. These checks are frequently 
 exchanged for cash or used to cancel previous debts and end up being cashed 
 by third parties as part of a normal payment circuit.\n\nEXTORTION OR 
 MOBILIZATION FOR DEMANDS?\n\nThe other aspect of the attack on the Polo 
 Obrero is the accusation of extortion, which is made at length by 
 Prosecutor Pollicita. By saying that mobilizations against hunger are the 
 result of a desire to extort money from those who mobilize, the judge and 
 the prosecutor invert what was really happening, which is that a large 
 number of unemployed people from different neighborhoods chose to mobilize 
 with the Polo Obrero in order to obtain from the State a minimum assistance 
 that it would never have given them if they had asked for it 
 individually.\n\nThe reasoning of the judge and the prosecutor assumes that 
 those who attended the mobilizations did so because if they did not, they 
 would be dismissed from the plan. In fact, it is not true that 
 organizations could cancel payments (the Ministry could!) and much less 
 that Polo relied on cancellations or sanctions to mobilize: in fact, as the 
 delegate’s manual and the practice of the organization show, 
 mobilizations were the only method of extending and defending the conquests 
 of those who really intended to cancel payments or cut off the supply of 
 food, which was the Ministry.\n\nThe Judge and the Prosecutor consider that 
 the organization “demanded” to mobilize in order to access a 
 plan.\n\nVS\n\nThe reality is that without mobilizing, THE STATE did not 
 respond to the demand for inscribing people in social programs.\n\nJudge 
 and Prosecutor argue that the organizations were canceling payment of 
 subsidies for not mobilizing\n\nVs\n\nThe reality is that the STATE was 
 arbitrarily dismissing workers month after month. For this reason, the Polo 
 Obrero and its technical team had to, month after month, carry out hundreds 
 of claims so that comrades would continue to be paid.\n\nFinally, the Judge 
 and the Prosecutor argue that the organizations did not “let those who 
 did not mobilize eat”.\n\nVs\n\nThe reality is that food assistance works 
 with the efforts of the organizations. And that if they didn’t struggle 
 for them, the state would indefinitely delay food deliveries at the cost of 
 the food of hundreds of thousands of families.\n\nThis is what Minister 
 Petovello is currently doing.\n\nTHE FAKE EVIDENCE OF THE EXTORTION\n\nIn 
 order to prove that comrades of Polo Obrero were extorted to attend to 
 mobilizations or to carry out any collaboration, fragmentary evidence and 
 statements are used, taken out of context and even forged. For 
 example:\n\nWhat is quoted from Witness 1: “that he had to go to 
 march”, because if he did not, “he could lose the program”. A phrase 
 extracted from a context where he relates a political awareness talk about 
 the need to march to maintain the program and the food, in the face of the 
 clear threat of the governments in power to take them away. As indeed this 
 government did when it took office, which immediately stopped providing 
 food aid to soup kitchens.\n\nWhat the judge and the prosecutor hide. The 
 witness says: “I signed up in a lot of places, I signed up with a lot of 
 political people, I gave them all my data, I never received anything and I 
 said that the Polo Obrero is the only one that got me on a program” and 
 about the talk, he says “They explained to us everything about the Polo 
 Obrero, that we were going to fight for our benefits, to fight for our 
 programs, to increase them and all those things. That if we didn’t go we 
 could lose the program.” This should be analyzed precisely in the context 
 in which the witness himself states that “we marched until we were 
 included on the program”. In fact, the witness here is a witness to that 
 reality in which only with mobilization did he obtain his inclusion in the 
 program, which was clear from his statement.\n\nWhat the Judge and the 
 Prosecutor quote from Witness 2: “if you miss three marches, they will 
 take you out, they told me”.\n\nWhat he actually said: Question: If you 
 were absent when you were called to the soup kitchen area or when you were 
 called to bring goods up or down, if you did not go, was there any kind of 
 sanction? no no, when I went I was absent because sometimes I felt bad or 
 (…) it was not like that. Question: If you did not go to a march or 
 mobilization, was there any sanction? no, no.\n\nTHE GOVERNMENT, NOT THE 
 ORGANIZATIONS, DECIDES DISMISSALS FROM THE PROGRAMS.\n\nAfter pressuring 
 witnesses in interrogations where the defense did not participate and 
 forcing “repentance” by threatening rank and file delegates with jail 
 if they do not denounce their own comrades, the Judge and the Prosecutor, 
 in order to sustain their accusation, distort the evidence and must ignore 
 what the witnesses really said.\n\nThe same action was carried out by the 
 judge and the Prosecutor with the spreadsheet that states: Dismissals of 
 Potenciar Trabajo program for not marching. A spreadsheet that was part of 
 the profuse media campaign against the Polo Obrero. Crossing the data of 
 this spreadsheet with the beneficiaries of Potenciar Trabajo program at 
 present, a totally different picture emerges: most of them, far from being 
 dismissed, are still active, and many of them are still in the Polo 
 Obrero:\n\nThe judge does the same with the notebooks that say 
 “sanctions”. These “sanctions” consisted in giving back the days 
 worked in the soup kitchen when someone was absent for work. As María 
 Isolda Dotti explained in her deposition, the work regime in soup kitchens 
 did not establish labor rights or any justification for absences. Against 
 this orientation of precariousness, Polo Obrero had a regime to justified 
 leaves and permissions, but that could not go against the need to cook the 
 soup kitchen rations, because if they are not cooked, the City Government 
 withdraws the assistance.\n\nThat is why the assemblies had voted for a 
 system of recuperation of days in case of absenteeism. Far from being 
 “hunger notebooks”, the notebooks show an organization that responds on 
 the basis of a debate and collective action to defend the right to food in 
 the face of a State that ignores it.\n\nTHE REALITY OF THE “POTENCIAR 
 TRABAJO” PROGRAM CONTRADICTS THE JUDGE AND THE PROSECUTOR\n\nIn spite of 
 the Judge’s and the Prosecutor’s assertions, piquetero organizations 
 could not dismiss anyone from the “Potenciar Trabajo” program. What is 
 more, the beneficiaries were free to leave. If they did not want to 
 continue carry out work in one management unit, they had the right to go to 
 another. What the Management Units (the organizations) had to do was to 
 report absentees. But upon reporting absenteeism, the comrade was paid 50% 
 and had the opportunity to be reinstated, to make the corresponding claims 
 to the Ministry or to change Management Units. The final decision on the 
 leave of absence was always made by the Ministry. Therefore, it is false 
 that the organizations had the capacity to extort money on the basis of 
 sick leave.\n\nBut there is more: since there was a freedom of transfer, 
 each beneficiary could choose a management unit, that is to say, an 
 organization. This freedom of transfering was defended by the Polo Obrero 
 and the Unidad Piquetera, when Minister Zabaleta wanted to eliminate 
 it.\n\nWith this free pass, 30,000 beneficiaries requested to transfer to 
 the Polo Obrero between 2020 and 2023.\n\nThis can only be explained by the 
 fact that far from being a gang of extortionists, the Polo Obrero stood out 
 for its internal democracy and its unconditional defense of the demands of 
 comrades.\n\nTHE POLO OBRERO DELEGATE’S MANUAL ALSO CONTRADICTS THE JUDGE 
 AND THE PROSECUTOR\n\nThe Judge and the Prosecutor maintain that the basis 
 for the extortion was the possibility of the organizations to leave and 
 that the “consideration” of the program was fulfilled in party 
 political activities. This is already refuted in the “delegate’s 
 manual” of Polo Obrero which was seized in different raids, a proof that 
 it was widely spread, and that it was in daily use by its delegates and 
 leaders. But in order to defend its misrepresentation, the judiciary 
 ignores everything it says. In relation to the mobilizations and the 
 consideration for the program, the delegate’s handbook denies the thesis 
 of Casanello and Pollicita in a resounding way when it argues:\n\n“Each 
 member of our organization has to know that the conquests are thanks to the 
 struggle. Therefore, the mobilizations and days of struggle ARE NOT A 
 MANDATORY OBLIGATION but a way of being able to wrest the demands from the 
 state.”\n\nThe delegate’s manual is centered on the debate against 
 “clientelism”, which is a typical and historical way of managing social 
 assistance, through extortion and threats, by the mayors. Therefore it is a 
 tool for the formation of a fighting organization, which was collectively 
 debated in the VII Congresses of the Polo Obrero and was updated with 
 contributions from the organization as a whole.\n\nTHE ATTACK ON THE 
 SELF-FINANCING OF PIQUETERO ORGANIZATIONS\n\nUnder the accusation of 
 extortion, the court case constitutes an attack on the self-financing of 
 the piquetero organizations. The Polo Obrero takes the criterion of 
 establishing a ceiling of 2% of the income for dues. This percentage is 
 taken from the criteria of the trade union organizations. As in the case of 
 the first unions, which did not have state recognition, each comrade 
 voluntarily makes a contribution. This contribution goes mainly to finance 
 everything that the state does not finance: the rent of the dining rooms, 
 supplies, ovens, refrigerators, transportation and logistic costs of an 
 organization that has a national scope.\n\nThe Polo Obrero debates in 
 assembly the rendering of expenses and incomes. The contributions are 
 voluntary and are based on the common understanding of the need to finance 
 the expenses of the organization. The congresses of the Polo Obrero debated 
 the issue and set these criteria, which are established in the delegate’s 
 manual. The accusation of the prosecution is based on forging evidence, 
 because not even the witnesses and repentants are totally clear in the fact 
 that there were no sanctions for not paying dues.\n\nThe criminalization of 
 the paying of dues to the Polo Obrero is completely arbitrary, because any 
 club or association has the capacity to fix dues for its affiliates as a 
 condition for belonging to such a grouping. The objective of this attack 
 is, once again, to dismantle the piquetero movement in order to attack its 
 capacity for struggle and mobilization against the 
 government.\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nAs we can see, the whole case is built on the 
 basis of a misrepresentation of evidence, the denial of the right to 
 defense in order to strike and dismantle a movement of struggle. Now, the 
 appeal chamber will have to rule on the prosecutions. We demand the 
 dismissal of all the comrades, as part of the campaign to stop the 
 repression and criminalization of social protest that this government has 
 been carrying out.\n\nWe will mobilize massively against this persecution 
 and ensure the right to protest to confront the governments of hunger and 
 misery.\n\nEn esta nota\nTo Chamber 1 of the Federal Court of 
 Appeal:\nhttps://prensaobrera.com/english/we-refute-the-accusations-against-polo-obrero-and-the-piquetero-movement\n\nWe 
 hereby call for an immediate end to the persecution against different 
 social organizations, and fundamentally against all comrades prosecuted in 
 case 4489/2023, who belong to Polo Obrero and other organizations. This 
 persecution began as a result of a Patricia Bullrich’s complaint against 
 the call for a mobilization on last 20 December, which was against the 
 national government’s policies. It then led to dozens of raids, wiretaps, 
 prosecutions and court cases.\n\nThe government is promoting these 
 complaints in order to intimidate the entire popular movement and avoid a 
 response in the streets to the dramatic situation that the Argentinean 
 people are going through as a result of the adjustment policies.\n\nThe 
 attack against social organizations is part of an agenda of persecution 
 that we view with great concern and that includes the denial of the right 
 to protest through repression, the restriction of the right to strike and 
 the conditioning and curtailment of all democratic freedoms.\n\n            
     Therefore, we demand an end to the persecution and the dismissal of the 
 cases against those who are being prosecuted with these unjust 
 allegations.\n\ncncrimcorrfed.sala1@pjn.gov.ar\n\nEn esta nota\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/09/14/18869298.php
SUMMARY:Rally! Hands Off Argentine Workers Party & Piqueteros Movement Drop the Charges!
LOCATION:Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay St., Oakland
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/09/14/18869298.php
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