The case Nisman – A prosecutor’s death divides the nation
A prosecutor's death shakes up Argentinean society.
Returning to Buenos Aires after nearly one month of holiday in which I did not follow the news too much, I got thrown in the deep end. At first I did not get the significance of the death of the prosecutor because I did not quite understand what was being said in the news so I decided not to pay too much attention to it. It was only a few days later when friends and family from Europe started mentioning the case to me when skypeing that I decided to dig a bit deeper. And that was when I realized...
Nisman had been found shot dead in his apartment one day before he was supposed to speak in front of the congress about his accusation of the president and other high government officials who have supposedly helped to cover up the involvement of Iranians in a terrorist attack in Argentina in 1994 in order to secure trade deals. His death divided the country. Was it suicide (as the president claimed) or was he murdered and it was only made to look like a suicide? And if he was murdered then by whom? In conversations it became clear very quickly that you were either pro government, and thus the suicide, or pro opposition, and thus murder theory. The topic became a very delicate one to handle and there were more and more voices demanding justice for his death. If the prosecutor got murdered, they wanted to see someone being prosecuted. The faith into the justice system of Argentina became very dependent on this one case.
One month after his death, marches were organized in all major cities of the country as well as internationally. Many people, including myself, were expecting that the situation would escalate, especially as nobody was sure how the police would react. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Buenos Aires alone. However, protests remained calm and sent a clear sign to the government and to the world.
No matter what really happened, one thing is sure: Nisman’s death woke up many Argentineans and made them realize what was going wrong in their country and that they had to stand up against those wrongs. It sparked a movement that would not have been born otherwise...