Argentina: UN Asks for Release of Activist Milagro Sala

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has asked the government of Argentine President Mauricio Macri to "immediately" release Milagro Sala, a social activist and an MP in the Parlasur, following her "arbitrary and baseless" arrest in January of this year.

In January, Sala, an indigenous social leader in the northwestern Province of Jujuy, was detained on charges that her backers (which include various human rights groups) say are baseless and were trumped up to extinguish her political influence.

Sala, who is closely aligned with former center-left leader and Macri's predecessor Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015), heads the Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Association, a public housing construction and maintenance organization that wields a significant amount of power in Jujuy.

The organization, which started in the...