Major political parties in Argentina have suspended election campaigning after the discovery of a body thought to be that of a missing activist.<\/p>\n
Santiago Maldonado, 28, was last seen in August during a confrontation between police and indigenous rights activists at a protest in Patagonia.<\/p>\n
Mr Maldonado’s disappearance caused a national outcry and has since become highly politicised.<\/p>\n
The news comes ahead of Argentina’s congressional elections on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Both governing and opposition parties have suspended campaigning as the body is transported to Buenos Aires for identification.<\/p>\n
Forensic experts have been assigned and a post-mortem will take place at the request of the Maldonado family.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Silvia Avila said the body, discovered in a riverbed just a few hundred metres from where Mr Maldonado was last seen, was found with clothing that resembled those belonging to the missing activist, AFP news agency reports.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Maldonado family said that the true identity of the body and cause of death would not be known until “experts have completed their work”.<\/p>\n
They added: “We are asking that our privacy be respected at this difficult time.”<\/p>\n
Witnesses say Mr Maldonado was last seen after he was arrested at a demonstration for the rights of the Mapuche indigenous group in southern Argentina on 1 August.<\/p>\n
On the day that he disappeared, border police clashed with protesters while dismantling a roadblock that had been erected on Route 40, the main road crossing Argentina from north to south.<\/p>\n
Police later denied detaining Mr Maldonado.<\/p>\n
Human rights campaigners, union leaders and left-wing groups had called on the government of Mauricio Macri, which has denied allegations of a cover-up, to do more to find him.<\/p>\n
President Macri’s government then offered a reward of almost $30,000 (\u00a323,000) for information on his disappearance.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Mr Maldonado’s brother, Sergio, has called for an independent investigation outside police authority.<\/p>\n
In September, thousands of Argentines marched in the capital Buenos Aires to protest the activist’s disappearance.<\/p>\n
The rally was one of many protests in cities across Argentina.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-latin-america-41674565<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major political parties in Argentina have suspended election campaigning after the discovery of a body thought to be that of a missing activist. Santiago Maldonado, 28, was last seen in August during a confrontation between police and indigenous rights activists at a protest in Patagonia. Mr Maldonado’s disappearance caused a national outcry and has since become highly politicised. The news… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}