The candidate for deputy for the Workers’ Left Front is a lawyer, activist, and Argentine politician. While studying for her law degree at the University of Buenos Aires in the 1990s, Bregman joined the Socialist Workers’ Party (PTS), an Argentine Trotskyist party of which she is one of the main leaders.
She was one of the lawyers who took on the case of Jorge Julio López, an eyewitness of the Dictatorship who disappeared in 2006 after testifying against Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and accused of genocide for the crimes he committed during the Dictatorship.
In 1997, she founded the Center of Professionals for Human Rights (CeProDH), which defends and supports dismissed and unemployed workers and intervenes against repression and impunity, and the collective Justicia Ya! (Justice Now), both of which are recurrent in cases of crimes against humanity during the dictatorial regime of state terrorism.
She was elected national deputy in 2009 and ran for Head of Government of the City of Buenos Aires in 2011 and 2015 for the Workers’ Left Front (which includes the PTS among others). In 2015 she became national deputy for the province of Buenos Aires, holding the seat through the rotation system of the Workers’ Left Front (FIT) until 2016, with broad support from various sectors. Since December 2017, she has served as deputy in the Buenos Aires City Legislature, where she is president of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission. She was also a candidate for vice president for the Front in the 2015 Argentine general elections, finishing in fourth place.
Myriam in defense of workers’ rights
Myriam Bregman has participated in the defense and support of both employed and unemployed workers in the City of Buenos Aires and in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Neuquén.
Since 1998, she has been the lawyer of the Zanon tile factory in Neuquén, being among those involved in the historic case in which the Zanón tile company was declared guilty of carrying out an “offensive lockout.”
She also stood out in the defense of Catalina Balaguer, a worker and activist at PepsiCo who was unjustly dismissed and later reinstated despite not being a formal union delegate (“de facto delegate”). Bregman also represented PepsiCo workers against the illegal closure of the Vicente López factory on June 20, 2017, and denounced judge Gastón Larramendi, who ordered the eviction of the factory a week earlier.
Cases against state repression and persecution
Bregman has participated in several legal cases defending activists and workers from police repression and political and union persecution. She is also part of the legal team representing Carla Lacorte. Lacorte, a victim of repression, is also a member of CeProDH along with Bregman. Bregman is also involved in the investigation of the case of Federal Police agent Américo Balbuena, who infiltrated social organizations to spy on them.
Cases of crimes against humanity
Bregman was among those involved in the first trial held after the reopening of cases of crimes against humanity committed by criminals of the Argentine dictatorship, the trial of former Buenos Aires police chief Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, where Justicia Ya! La Plata in 2006 accused him of committing genocide. In the final stages of the trial, one of the eyewitnesses, Jorge Julio López, disappeared; a case regarding his disappearance was subsequently opened and remains unresolved. Bregman was also the appeal lawyer during the trial against Jorge “Tigre” Acosta, in the ESMA case.
She took part in oral trials for the crimes committed at the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA mega-case) against prefect Héctor Febrés (2007), and in the second trial against 18 genocidal criminals, representing, among others, the cases of Rodolfo Walsh, Raimundo Villaflor, and organizations such as the Association of Former Disappeared Detainees (2009–2011).
Myriam Bregman was also a recurring lawyer during the oral trial against Cristian Federico Von Wernich in La Plata (2007), accusing him of crimes against humanity committed in Campo de Mayo; the “Floreal Avellaneda” case in San Martín, Buenos Aires Province (2009); the “Mansión Seré” case (against repressors from Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in 2008), among others.
In 2008 she was awarded by the Human Rights Commission of the Buenos Aires Bar Association. In 2016, Carlos Blaquier and executives from Ledesma sent her an intimidating letter while she was preparing to travel to Jujuy to receive reports of serious human rights violations in the province under then-Governor Gerardo Morales. Bregman reported receiving threatening phone calls in her office after her intervention in the Labor and Budget Commission, where she questioned the first employment bill because she considered it a measure to legalize outsourcing.
Bregman is also among those who founded and run the Center of Professionals for Human Rights (CeProDH).
Participation in the feminist struggle
On May 31, 2018, Myriam Bregman attended the 15th day of debate on the legalization of abortion in Argentina in the Argentine Congress to present her pro-legalization position, declaring: “We are proud to see so many young people with the green scarf as their flag.” She also took the opportunity to criticize the Catholic Church and the Archbishop of La Plata, Héctor Aguer, who “uses local governors as a transmission belt, who negotiate with women’s rights.”