The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has learned of initiatives to pardon perpetrators of serious rights violations and “modify the regime” under which prisoners serve out their sentences based on age, it said in a statement published Sunday.

The commission did not specify which country or countries it was referring to. However, the statement was released on March 24, Argentina’s day of memory, truth and justice, when the country commemorates the victims of the last dictatorship. The date is also the International Day for the Right to Know the Truth. 

The organism published its statement together with an image reading Nunca más impunidad (Impunity never again). On March 24, Argentina marches under the demand Nunca más, the name of the book compiled from the National Commission for Missing People’s report after the dictatorship ended.

The statement was issued jointly with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Nonrecurrence, a position currently occupied by Argentine human rights lawyer Fabián Salvioli.

In addition to pardons and age-based clemency, the IACHR warned it had heard of judicial rulings that inappropriately shorten sentences and grant house arrest or parole.

The statement warned that undue pardons, prison benefits and commuted sentences for serious rights violations are a form of impunity. The Commission and the rapporteur called on member states not to grant these measures to the perpetrators and masterminds of gross human rights violations or international crimes, and to respect court rulings on them.

It highlighted that these types of benefit should be subject to an exceptionally rigorous analysis for human rights abusers because of the severity of their crimes. The rapporteur has recommended that humanitarian pardons only be granted for terminally ill prisoners for whom “death is imminent.”

The statement was published the same day the Casa Rosada issued a video questioning the number of people forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship. Vice President Victoria Villarruel is known for publicly defending military officers convicted of dictatorship-era crimes against humanity, saying they were fighting in a war against terrorist guerrillas.

In Argentina, 15 trials for crimes against humanity committed during the last dictatorship are still ongoing and many of the accused have died awaiting trial. Many perpetrators convicted of crimes against humanity are under house arrest for reasons of ill health or age. In February, Jorge Antonio Olivera, a former military officer convicted of disappearing 26 people and murdering six, sparked outrage by holding a blow-out 50th wedding anniversary party with his wife while under house arrest.

The IACHR is an autonomous institution of the Organization of American States, tasked with monitoring human rights across the Americas.

“States must ensure that the judicial system puts an end to impunity, that the truth about what happened and the fate of the victims is made public knowledge, and that serious human rights violations are never repeated,” the document reads.