By Pablo Vasco
On Monday, June 29, by two votes to one, Chamber II of the Court of Appeals of the City of Buenos Aires in Criminal, Contraventional and Misdemeanor Matters notified its revocation of the dismissal of comrade Alejandro Bodart, secretary general of the MST in the FIT-U and coordinator of the International Socialist League, issued by Judge Pablo Casas in March in response to the DAIA’s accusation of alleged “discrimination”.
The lawsuit filed by said Zionist entity against Alejandro was submitted in response to his public statements in defense of Palestine and in repudiation of the genocidal role of the State of Israel, which according to the UN Human Rights Commission itself and organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch commits apartheid, that is to say racist persecution, against the Palestinian people.
According to Judge Fernando Bosch and Judge Carla Cavaliere, “the so-called ‘hate crimes’ require a thorough debate, with the widest possible discussion and evidence. Such a circumstance must take place in the democratic place par excellence such as a trial hearing“. In turn, Judge Sergio Delgado assessed that “equating Zionists with Nazis or recalling ’74 years of catastrophe of the Palestinian people at the hands of the racist and genocidal State of Israel’ are expressions protected by freedom of expression… which do not encourage or imply hate speech, nor do they infringe the rules in force“.
Lawyer María del Carmen Verdú, who together with her colleague Ismael Jalil, both from CORREPI, are Bodart’s defenders, explained: “Once the case returns to the first instance, we will see if Judge Casas excuses himself because he has already issued an opinion and pass it to another judge or continue himself. That is to say, we’d go back to March. We have to hold a hearing to determine the evidence to be produced in the debate and wait for the trial date to be set once the supplementary instruction, if any, is produced“.
It is therefore necessary to firmly maintain the campaign in solidarity with Alejandro Bodart in the face of this new attempt by Zionism to silence any voice that questions the genocidal policy of Israel, whose ultra-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultra-religious parties has already murdered more than 130 Palestinians since the beginning of this year to date.