Photojournalist seriously injured by police during protest leaves intensive care

Photojournalist Pablo Grillo, who suffered a serious head injury after being struck by a police tear gas canister while covering a protest in Buenos Aires, was discharged from the Ramos Mejía Hospital on Tuesday after multiple surgeries and almost three months in intensive care, his family said.

Grillo, 35, sustained a fractured skull when he knelt to take photographs of police cracking down on a pensioners’ demonstration outside Congress on March 12 – a case that shocked public opinion and prompted widespread condemnation from trade unions and press associations across Argentina.

Footage taken by fellow journalists helped identify the officer who fired the canister. It now forms part of the evidence in a legal case investigating excessive use of police force, led by the Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos and the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) human rights groups, among others.

Grillo left the Ramos Mejía Hospital in a wheelchair to applause from medical staff, friends and colleagues. 

According to his family, he will continue “physical and cognitive” rehabilitation at the specialist Manuel Rocca Hospital for an undetermined period. 

"It will be a multidisciplinary process," his father explained in an interview with Radio Re. "He has to relearn basic skills: shaving, walking, using his hands, and memory. The important thing is that he becomes independent again."

They described his recovery as “a new birth” and revealed they feared that Pablo would never recover.

More than 100 people were arrested during the same protest, though all were later released after the detentions were deemed arbitrary by the courts.

The weekly demonstrations by pensioners outside Congress – who are demanding increases to state pensions that currently cover only a third of the basic food basket – have become a key focus of resistance to the austerity measures of President Javier Milei’s government.

The Milei administration, via the National Security Ministry headed by Patricia Bullrich, has responded to such protests with an iron fist. The rallies have drawn support from football fans, religious groups, students and unions, among others.

The crackdown has been especially harsh on photographers and reporters covering the demonstrations, who are routinely pepper-sprayed despite wearing press credentials. Scuffles and shoving by police have resulted in injuries and damaged equipment.

According to the FOPEA press watchdog, attacks on the press rose by 53 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, with 80 percent of the violence coming from state agents.

In the first five months of this year alone, FOPEA recorded 119 incidents – up from 61 recorded in the same period of 2024.

The surge coincides with President Milei’s repeated verbal attacks on critical media, branding journalists “lying trash, corrupt” and “on the take.” He has declared that “people don’t hate journalists enough.”

A recent report by the Reporters Without Borders media watchdog cited Argentina as one of several nations in the Americas that are facing an “alarming deterioration” in press freedom.

– TIMES/AFP/NA