Our Neighbors Committed Mass Murder, Heres What We Did, Op Docs

Faced with a lack of prosecution of those accused of crimes against humanity committed during Argentinas military dictatorship, family members and descendants of the countrys estimated 30, 000 disappeared took action. In the mid1990s, they began gathering outside of accused perpetrators homes and workplaces to publicly shame them and raise awareness about the governments systematic and brutal targeting of its people and how it had gone unpunished. The human rights group HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetfulness and Silence) led and labeled this directaction style of protest escrache, or exposure. After years of organizing and sustained pressure from activist groups like HIJOS, the amnesty laws protecting the perpetrators were repealed. In Sean Mattison s Atención Murderer Next Door, we see how peaceful protests ensured that the perpetrators could no longer live in quiet anonymity. Now escrache is an important tool for activists seeking