He had been indicted over a Facebook post calling to “set fire” to an Argentine post office branch.
A federal appeals court in Buenos Aires has cleared a man who had been prosecuted for alleged incitement to collective violence after posting a message in a Facebook group calling to “set fire” to a branch of Argentina’s national postal service. The court described the statement as “reprehensible,” but found that it did not meet the legal threshold required to qualify as a criminal offense.
The ruling overturned an earlier indictment and ordered the defendant’s dismissal from the case. In doing so, the appeals court looked not only at the wording of the message, but also at its actual reach and practical effect. The judges noted that the post had almost no impact inside the group where it appeared: out of more than 4,000 members, only six users clicked “like.”
The post, published in April 2024 in a Facebook group titled “Yo trabajo… en el Correo Argentino,” read: “Hay que prender fuego Brandsen, con el traidor de C.B. adentro!!” According to the case file, “Brandsen” referred to a postal branch in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires where roughly 680 employees work. The postal company filed a complaint days later, and the case eventually moved to the federal courts at Comodoro Py.
Investigators linked the Facebook account used for the post to the accused, and a lower court charged him with incitement to collective violence. But on appeal, the panel reversed that decision and ordered his dismissal.
Judges Pablo Bertuzzi, Leopoldo Bruglia, and Mariano Llorens said the message appeared to express, in extreme terms, dissatisfaction with a company policy connected to an employment-related conflict, rather than a real public call capable of provoking collective violence.
Court Says the Post Had No Real Capacity to Trigger Violence
The appeals court stressed that the offense at issue requires conduct that is objectively capable of encouraging, mobilizing, or provoking others to commit violent acts. In this case, the judges found no such element.
According to the ruling, the post was isolated, had minimal reach inside the group, and was not followed by any identifiable reaction suggesting that readers understood it as a serious call to action. The fact that only six out of more than 4,300 members reacted to the message was treated as an important sign of its limited impact.
The defense argued that the post was not a genuine call for violence, but rather an impulsive and abstract insult written in anger. It also stressed the lack of any measurable consequences flowing from the message. The appeals judges agreed.
They said the case file contained no evidence that the post had led to mobilizations, copycat messages, marches, or any comparable reaction from people who may have seen it. There was also no indication that the company had responded as if it faced a real threat by calling firefighters, increasing security, or taking emergency steps to protect workers or property.
No Direct Intent and No Concrete Consequences
The investigation into the Facebook post was handled in the federal courts at Comodoro Py in Buenos Aires.
The court also placed weight on the absence of direct criminal intent. It said the offense of incitement to collective violence requires a concrete intention to encourage others to engage in violent acts, and that such intent was not established in the record.
The ruling also noted that the prosecutor had already concluded that the facts did not fit other criminal categories, such as threats. The judges said that point was relevant as well when deciding whether the message could support the more specific accusation of incitement to collective violence.
Another factor that weakened the prosecution’s theory was timing. Authorities only became aware of the message several days after it had been posted, which the court said also undercut the claim that it posed an immediate or serious danger.
In one of the key points of the ruling, the judges explained that criminal law in this area does not punish every offensive, reckless, or disturbing remark. To become a crime, the expression must have the objective capacity to publicly encourage aggression against others. In their view, that threshold was not met in this case.
The ruling therefore drew a clear line between language that may be socially condemnable and language that crosses into criminal conduct. By vacating the indictment and ordering the defendant’s dismissal, the court held that the post, while offensive and irresponsible, did not have the legal weight required for punishment under Argentine criminal law.
