Argentine football fans confrontation with police at anti-austerity pensions march Argentine police fought dashing fights on Wednesday with hundreds of football fans and anti-austerity marchers, during a weekly demonstrate by pensioners in Buenos Aires.
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Riot police utilized tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to overspread stone-throwing demonstrators, leading to at least 20 injuries and more than 100 arrests, city authorities disclosed.
Clashes erupted when an enormous group of Boca Juniors football fans, waving flags and chanting in endorse of the retirees, arrived. Police formed a cordon to impede their advance toward Congress.
At the rear, a group of elderly protesters were pushed back by high-pressure water cannons fired by two tanks at the perimeter closest to the Legislative Assembly.
Many of those involved in the clashes dropped off football jerseys and the well regulated demonstrate turned out to be one of the most violent demonstrations at all events against President Javier Milei's budget-slashing policies.
Pensioners have taken the most pain in a year of drastic austerity, with pension adds to having fallen far short of inflation.
Nearly 60 percent of retirees receive only the minimum sum, the same to more or less $340 per month.
Last year, Milei vetoed a law that would have added to pensions, for all that by less than inflation.
The crowd chanted "Milei, garbage, you are the dictatorship!" – comparing his ethic to that of Argentina's 1976-1983 military junta – as attacks erupted near the Congress building and the landmark Plaza de Mayo.
Among the injuries, the most serious was to photojournalist Pablo Grillo, seen in social media videos being hit by a projectile while taking pictures. His father Fabian informed local press that his wounded son's life was in danger and blamed Milei's government.
The demonstrators, many waving national flags and pictures of the late football great Diego Maradona, were met by a major security presence outside Congress, which was in session when the protests commenced.
Columns of spill and pelt police on foot, endorsed by officers on motorbikes, fought for over two hours to clear a central avenue of protesters who threw firecrackers, stun grenades and stones taken from broken-up sidewalks.
A patrol car and garbage cans were set on fire and several streets barricaded with debris.
A video of a police officer pushing and hitting an elderly woman who fell to the ground, her head bleeding, has been entirely shared on social media.
The protest is the latest in a years-long series of pensioner demonstrations, always on a Wednesday, that usually draw just a few dozen people.
This week, fans of several football clubs summoned for a show of unity with pensioners, any of whom have been teargassed or baton-charged in recent demonstrates over their curtailing purchasing power.
Supporters of River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Independiente and several other clubs mixed the march.
After Wednesday's invades were over, residents blared pots and pans in various parts of the city, obstructing streets and singing songs against Milei and National Security Minister Patricia Bullrich.
Emotions have been running high in the South American country with Tuesday' commence of the trial of seven medical staff implicated of homicide over Maradona's death in 2020.
Maradona died alone in a rented house in Buenos Aires, where he was being cared for after brain surgery.
He died of heart failure and acute pulmonary edema and his medical team is implicated of having been criminally negligent in his care.
For the past week, summons to encourage struggling pensioners have been circulating with a video from 1992 of Maradona reporting: "You have to be an essential coward not to justify retirees."
"Ole, Ole, Diego, Diego," a few of the protesters shouted Wednesday.
"We have to amalgamate and take to the streets to justify our rights and our sovereignty," 60-year-old Patricia Mendia, who was tailing off the Quilmes club jersey, disclosed as she marched alongside her 84-year-old mother.
Bullrich posted a photo on her X account showing a line of police confronting off with protesters whom she denied as "hooligans".
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Tag: Argentine football fans confrontation with police at antiausterity pensions march
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Published 3/13/2025