E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3 page 15 46. According to the representatives of various social groups, this kind of police action has the effect of intimidating average citizens. It is alleged that the police stop and search vehicles and make the passengers get out of public transport vehicles in order to check their identities and search their belongings. Some provincial NGO representatives said that this kind of police action, which was justified as being necessary to maintain law and order, reminded them of the repressive methods used during the military dictatorship. Sometimes, the same officers were involved. B. Irregular police procedures 47. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, through the Office of the Attorney-General for Criminal Policy, has had investigations carried out by the Commission of Inquiry into Irregular Police Procedures. The Commission uncovered many cases involving police officers who, eager to demonstrate their effectiveness in combating the crime wave, had invented and fabricated cases by detaining innocent individuals after reporting the successful prosecution of an offence. The 2002 report of the Office of the Attorney-General mentions 64 fabricated cases based on false accusations by the police. The ability of the victims of such situations to defend themselves is virtually non-existent, since most of them are from the most vulnerable groups on the fringes of society: the unemployed, beggars, illegal immigrants or individuals with a police record. 48. The pattern in these cases is to take the individuals to a particular place, “plant” evidence, accuse them of theft, and so on. Some 90 per cent of these fabricated cases reach the stage of oral proceedings, thus leaving less time for the handling of important cases involving a real offence. The victims of these false accusations are often released, but only after spending a year or a year and a half on average in arbitrary detention. They are then described in the media as criminals captured in “successful” police operations. Redress is difficult to obtain, since these vulnerable groups have little or no access to justice. The Working Group was informed that no police officer has been tried or imprisoned for these acts. One captain is even said to have been promoted. C. Detention in connection with social protest (piqueteros) 49. The serious economic crisis in Argentina, the recession that has lasted for over four years and the economic collapse of December 2001 have led to widespread protests, first in rural areas and then in industrial areas where the number of unemployed has risen sharply. The protests basically involve the blockading of roads, some of which are major federal highways, and the occupation of bridges, streets, railway, bus and underground stations and even public buildings by groups called “piqueteros”. The disruption of transport by land, water or air is expressly defined as an offence in article 194 of the Criminal Code. There have been violent clashes between the piqueteros and the security forces, which use rubber bullets to stop demonstrations. Provincial officials from Buenos Aires and Salta told the Working Group that the actions of the piqueteros were often violent and infringed on other people’s freedom of movement and transport. The Working Group was informed by federal officials that over 3,000 piqueteros face charges, some of them on 30 or 40 counts. In Salta, members of the provincial congress reported that in some cases the piqueteros allowed people to continue travelling if they paid a certain