After three and a half years of the protests that shook Chile in 2019 in the so-called social outbreak, Amnesty International warned in a report published this Wednesday that only 22 of the 10,936 cases of police abuse have ended in conviction and that the victims still do not have adequate reparation.
“The Chilean State shows great weaknesses in terms of human rights. Impunity has been the general rule, it does not take care of the victims of the social outbreak nor does it provide guarantees that similar events will not be repeated,” said the director of Amnesty International Chile, Rodrigo Bustos.
In the report “Comprehensive reparation for human rights violations committed in the context of the social outbreak”, Amnesty International Chile figures at 130 judicial processes opened for police abuses during the 2019 protests1.19 percent of the total number of human rights violations confirmed by the Public Ministry.
In October 2019, intense protests began in Chile that lasted for months calling for profound social changes, often leading to serious riots. In total, there were more than 30 deaths and thousands of injuries.
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Bustos singled out in particular the 4,402 requests from Chilean prosecutors to apply the Istanbul Protocol, which is activated only in extreme cases such as torture or serious physical attacks, and whose expert evidence has often reached up to two years after the attack suffered by the victim or has simply not been carried out.
“There were cases of homicides, brutal beatings, people with eye injuries, adolescent girls stripped naked in police stations. The data shows a general panorama of impunity and we continue to question the State and the Government to fulfill their duties in terms of human rights,” Bustos remarked.
The Amnesty International report details deficiencies in care for victims: The programs focused on the medical aspect, without contemplating the psychological variant, and were mostly concentrated in the Chilean capital, leaving many victims who reside in other parts of the country without services, the organization points out.
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AI asks for guarantees of non-repetition
Amnesty International asks the Chilean Executive for measures to guarantee that similar events will not be repeated in the future to the police abuses committed during the social outbreak, with far-reaching reforms in the Chilean police and laws that regulate the use of force and weapons by state agents.
“Unfortunately, the latest measures approved to reduce crime in
Chile does not go in the direction of protecting the Police or the citizenry, but rather they give agents a kind of blank check to use force without limits,” said the director of Amnesty International Chile.
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They give agents a kind of blank check to use force without limits
As a result of the increase in the most violent crimes in Chile and the alarm they have generated in recent months, the National Congress approved a law, popularly called “easy trigger”, which gives greater powers to the Police to use their firearms.
Bustos added that Chile is one of the few countries that continues to relegate regulation in police matters to internal regulations of the security forces or the Army, so advocated drafting laws that include “clear guidelines” on the use of force and for training agents in the use of weapons and human rights.
“Any citizen can face the misuse of force by a State agent in the future. In a democracy, it is essential that force be clearly regulated and that police officers know how to use the weapons they have at their disposal Bustos concluded.
EFE
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