The police in the Jujuy province raided the home of Indigenous and social leader Milagro Sala, the leader of the Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Organization, who has been imprisoned since January 2016. Alejandro Coco Garfagnini, a leader of the Tupac Amaru, told Página/12 that the officers seized money, personal computers, and mobile phones, among other valuables, and turned the whole house upside down. Garfagnini also reported that the police personnel carried out the raid violently, even in the room where Sala’s terminally ill husband, journalist Raúl Noro was resting after returning from a hospital two days ago.

The warrant to search the property of Sala, the leader of the Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Organization, was issued by Federal Judge Rodolfo Fernández. It was issued as part of an investigation into alleged public disturbances in recent days during the protests rejecting the reforms to the provincial Constitution. The reforms, promoted by conservative Governor Gerardo Morales of the right-wing Radical Civic Union party, have been widely opposed in the province. The people of Jujuy have strongly rejected the new constitution, deeming it “unconstitutional” and “regressive.” They have noted that the new constitution does not recognize the rights of the Indigenous peoples, enshrined in the National Constitution, and promotes the provincialization of natural resources such as land and water. They have also condemned it for enabling the displacement of Indigenous communities that are inhabiting territories rich in resources and denying them their collective rights to ancestral land and territories.