Beinusz Szmukler, a leading Jewish-Argentine progressive lawyer, has died at 91
Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2023, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)
Prominent Jewish-Argentine lawyer and human rights activist Beinusz Szmukler died this Tuesday in Buenos Aires; he was 91.
Born in Kletsk, a village then in eastern Poland, in 1931, Szmukler's family emigrated to Argentina in 1937 - just four years before the Nazi occupation led to the genocide of most of the region's Jews, including many of the Szmuklers' relatives.
He earned his law degree at the University of Buenos Aires, and from 1960 to 1976 headed the Argentine Human Rights League (LADH) - representing, among others, political prisoners amid a steadily-tightening crackdown against labor and leftist dissent.
Szmukler co-founded the American Association of Jurists (AAJ) in 1975, which works with UNESCO to represent disadvantaged communities in Latin America, and headed its Continental Advisory Council until his passing.
A lifelong Communist, he later headed the Swiss-based International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) - which the CIA described as a "Communist front."
When asked about the principles that guided his practice, he described it as "action against imperialism, fascism, colonialism, and discrimination against women, aborigines and minorities."
After the return of democracy to Argentina in 1983, he taught law and was eventually elected to a four-year term in the powerful Council of Magistrates in 2002 - which oversees the federal judiciary.
That year, he filed a malfeasance complaint against the country's notoriously corrupt Supreme Court - a complaint which, with the support of populist President Néstor Kirchner, led to their impeachment in Argentina's Congress in 2004.
He later headed the Buenos Aires Bar Association (2007-09), during which he was a prominent advocate for then-President Cristina Kirchner's efforts to curb media monopolies. In 2012, he co-founded the Buenos Aires progressive lawyers' association Legitimate Justice - a favorite target of right-wing media in Argentina.
More recently, he successfully represented noted film-maker Osvaldo Bayer in a libel lawsuit brought against him by the powerful Martínez de Hoz family over a 2016 documentary.
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz (1925-2013) served as the dictatorship's Economy Minister in 1976-81, when Argentine manufacturing and living standards collapsed amid a foreign debt bubble that burdens the country to this day.
Szmukler remained a vocal critic of the country's highly-politicized judiciary, joining a rally this February 1st in support of ongoing impeachment hearings in Congress against the current Supreme Court over corruption and abuse of power allegations.
The LADH saluted Szmukler on his passing as a "people's lawyer, and profoundly humanist."
At: https://www-pagina12-com-ar.translate.goog/522154-un-luchador-por-los-derechos-humanos?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Noted Jewish-Argentine lawyer and activist Beinusz Szmukler, 1931-2023.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel noted that "We just saw him in Buenos Aires" - during last week's Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit.
"Lucid, affectionate and happy, despite his discomfort, Beinusz Szmukler came to see us. Cuba will be eternally grateful to him for his firm position on the side of the truth."
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He became courageous, strong, wise, deeply moral all the way to the bone.
It appears his life lifted the spirits and conditions of life for people of value throughout.
Amazing he was still working for the good of humanity, as a citizen of the world even last week!
He has earned a vacation, hasn't he? So much hardship, and so much work to overcome it.
May he rest in joyous peace. 
Thank you, peppertree.
I thought it was worth sharing his story to English-speaking readers, who might never hear about him otherwise.
Here's a photo of him at that February 1st Supreme Court impeachment rally - his last public appearance:
He's sitting between Mothers of Plaza de Mayo leaders Taty Almeida and Nora Cortiñas. The big guy shaking his hand is Buenos Aires Province Teachers' Union leader Roberto Baradel (a favorite punching bag of the Argentine right).
The older man at the microphone is Buenos Aires Federal Judge Juan Ramos Padilla - whose son, Alejo, you might recall, presided over the Marcelo d'Alessio extortion trial in 2019.
While d'Alessio was convicted and jailed, his bosses - Federal Prosecutor Carlos "Extornelli" Stornelli, Patricia "another glass" Bullrich, and of course Macri - are still being shielded by the infamous Comodoro Py Courthouse (where federal corruption cases inevitably end up, and which Macri took care to stack in his favor while in office).
Judge Ramos Padilla knows more than most about the rot in Argentina's judiciary - as did the jovial Mr. Szmukler. Godspeed.
