Julian “Iki” Eugenio (photo courtesy of MPLD)
Crowds took to the streets to protest the shooting of a member of the Movimiento Popular La Dignidad (MPLD) yesterday in La Matanza.
Witnesses and MPLD members said a strongman for the governing PRO party —who they say is linked to the Instituto de Vivienda de la Ciudad (IVC) housing body– shot Julian “Iki” Eugenio in the chest on 12th February during a meeting of the MPLD in Villa Celina.
MPLD members were in the midst of a meeting at 9pm when the strongman allegedly burst in “with shouts and threats saying to [Eugenio] to ‘not fuck with the land in the neighbourhood Vicente Lopez y Planes’,” said the MPLD in a press release.
The strongman then allegedly shot Eugenio, who was taken to the Santojanni Hospital where he was operated on to treat a punctured lung and other injuries from the gunshot. Eugenio remains in the hospital and is now in a stable condition.
In an interview with Télam, a friend of Eugenio said he believes the attack was because Eugenio spoke out against the illegal delivery of housing in the area since he had already been threatened before.
The MPLD said Eugenio, along with his neighbours, had succeeded in stopping an illegal multi-million real estate speculation project which would have been built on his neighbourhood’s land.
“We understand that this is not an isolated event but part of a wider context of increased repression, persecution and criminalisation of protest,” said MPLD.
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