Vicepresident asks protesters to go home
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina vicepresident Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner asked her supporters to halt a protest yesterday, while defending the protesters’ right to demonstrate, after prosecutors requested a 12year prison sentence for alleged corruption.
After a tense day in which thousands took to the streets to defend her and two were detained in clashes that injured seven police officers, Fernandez de Kirchner gave a brief evening speech on a makeshift stage in front of her house.
‘‘I want to say thank you and to ask you to go get some rest. It’s been a long day.’’
Prosecutors last week accused Fernandez de Kirchner of defrauding the state and involvement in a scheme to divert public funds while president from 2007 to 2015.
The largest demonstration of her supporters took place outside the vicepresident’s home in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Recoleta, where police had set up fences in an effort to prevent a large gathering.
The demonstrators, who claim Fernandez de Kirchner is the victim of judicial persecution and that the fences were erected by Buenos Aires’ opposition mayor as a provocation, tore down the barriers and clashed with police. Hydrant trucks tried to disperse the crowds with water.
President Alberto Fernandez later took to Twitter to criticise ‘‘the institutional violence unleashed by the city government’’.
Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta justified the placement of fences and the actions of the police, saying ‘‘the demonstration turned into a situation of violence’’. — Reuters