Argentina declared this Friday a national holiday after the assassination attempt on Cristina Kirchner when a man tried to shoot the vice president with a firearm in Buenos Aires.
Rejecting the attack, President Alberto Fernández announced, through a statement to the country, that he decided to declare a national holiday this Friday so that, “in peace and harmony, the Argentine people can express themselves in defense of life, democracy and solidarity “. with our vice president.
“The Argentine people want to live in democracy and in peace, and our government is firmly committed to working every day to achieve it,” he stressed.
According to Alberto Fernández, Cristina Kirchner “is alive” because, “for some unknown technical reason,” the firearm, which had five bullets, did not fire.
“This attack deserves the strongest repudiation of the entire Argentine society, of all political sectors, of all the men and women of the republic, because these events affect our democracy,” he added, rejecting the “hate speeches” and the ” violence”. ” in the country.
For the President, the event that occurred last night has “an extreme institutional and human gravity” and “has altered social peace.” “There is no possibility of violence coexisting with democracy,” he emphasized.
NATIONAL CHAIN - Message from the President of the Nation, Alberto Fernández (@alferdez). https://t.co/dg2UDugDaz
-Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) September 2, 2022
For this reason, “Argentina cannot waste another minute. There is no time. It is necessary to curb violence and hatred in political discourse in the media and in our society,” he said, stressing that the country is obliged “to recover the democratic coexistence”. that fell apart due to the hate speech of different political, judicial and media spaces of society”.
“We can have deep disagreements (…), but in a democratic society there can be no hate speech,” he reinforced, calling on all the Argentine people, political and social leaders, as well as the media and society to reject any discourse that promotes violence and stigmatization.
Videos broadcast by several television channels show the moment in which a person pointed a firearm in front of the face of former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015), when she was getting out of a car near her home. Following the incident, a man was arrested.
The state news agency Télam identified him as a Brazilian citizen. According to the local police, his father is Chilean and his mother is Argentine.
The incident also led the Argentine Football Association to suspend all matches scheduled for the day.
Supporters of the vice president have been gathering in the streets around her house since last week, after a prosecutor called for a 12-year sentence for Kirchner in a case of alleged corruption related to public works.
Tensions have been rising in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires since the weekend, when supporters of the vice president clashed with police in the streets outside her apartment after security forces tried to demobilize protesters.
Source: TSF
