He PIT-CNT rejected the prosecutor’s decision Gabriela Fossati to accuse the president of the union of the National Administration of State Sanitary Works (OSE), Frederick Kreimerman, for the crime of “assault”. From the union center they understand that it is a step towards the judicialization of the protest in Uruguay.
Two months ago, in the middle of June and while SBI there would be the envelopes of the tender of the Arazati Project —also known as Neptune—, outside the building ffose held a protest against the initiative that involves the construction of a new drinking water plant. During the protest, Kreimerman lit a smoke bomb inside the main building.
This is why prosecutor Fossati charged him yesterday for a crime of especially aggravated assault, which can have a sentence of three months to three years in prison. According to the magistrate, “although the episode occurred in the context of a mobilization, there was an excess with the intention of hindering the bidding act (of the Project Neptune) that was going on.”
The rejection of the unions
Faced with this situation, the PIT-CNT issued a statement in which it expressed its “deep concern and rejection” of Fossati’s decision, as it understands as “very negative and dangerous the judicialization of social protest”. Likewise, he considered that “an action that did not endanger any person or cause patrimonial damage to the public company cannot be classified as an ‘attack’”; an argument that Kreimerman also used during his defense.
In the statement, the trade union center also called on the “pertinent authorities to guarantee a due process of law and transparent, in which the circumstances and the real context in which the action was carried out are taken into account, which in no way can be qualified in such a way”.
For its part, the union SBI —headed by Kreimerman—, also through a statement, reaffirmed that the whole situation, “far away” from intimidating them, because it is “attacks on trade union freedoms” “strengthens” them. “They will continue to find us in defense of public enterprises and in favor of the population”, he pointed out.
Along the same lines, they warned that the fact that the accusation against the president of ffose became known the same day that the state company awarded the Arazatí Project, it was a “clear maneuver”.
Meanwhile, the criminal lawyer Juan Fagundez, Kreimerman’s legal representative, considered that “there was no crime” in the action, and that the situation is a “Attack on trade union activity in the public sphere”.
He also questioned how the complaint was “structured” by the board of directors of SBI, since “it gives a lot to talk about”. He accused the public company of providing the recordings from the security cameras, which were later broadcast on a television program on Channel 4, and which were later “referred to in the complaint” as “proof of what happened.”
And he added: “This situation tells us about another place where the issue that” escapes the commission of a crime and it has more to do with political interests”. For the defender of the president of OSE, there is “unionization of criminal law opending union protestwhatever you want to call it.”
Source: Ambito
