“It is a small reparation for us the victims, for the relatives of the comrades who are not here today and who died here,” said one of the victims.
Two of the most emblematic victims of police violence during the social outbreak of 2019 in Chile, the young Gustavo Gatica and the senator-elect Fabiola Campillai, on Thursday asked the municipal authorities to change the name of the street “Carabineros de Chile” for “Human Rights”.
The street is located a few meters from Plaza Italia, the roundabout of Santiago that is considered the epicenter of the riots that broke out in October two years ago against inequality and the current economic model, the most serious since the end of the military dictatorship (1973-1990).
The crisis left a thirty dead and thousands injured, in addition to episodes of extreme violence, with looting, fires and accusations by the UN and Amnesty International against the Carabineros police force for human rights violations.
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The images of young people with bloody eyes after being shot of pellets and tear gas canisters to the face went around the world.
“It is a street with a lot of pain, that we want to start recovering and what better way than changing its name so that it no longer represents all these human rights violators who to this day they continue to shoot us”, Indicated the senator elected by the capital.
Campillai, who lost sight, taste and smell in November 2019 when he was going to work on the outskirts of Santiago and an officer fired a tear gas canister in his face, became an important activist and next March will assume her new position.
Waiting for justice
Gatica, the other person who completely lost sight due to police violence, he denounced that “justice does not come” and asked “Speed up judicial processes.”
“My case is not the only one, to the majority of colleagues who suffered eye trauma, the person who shot them was not even blamed”Added the young man, who was injured in November 2019 precisely on this street.
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Last October, the UN asked the Chilean State in a harsh report “Deepen your efforts” to address the human rights violations committed in the massive protests, which deflated with the onset of the pandemic.
We value the efforts of the State (…) However, obstacles persist in the victims’ access to justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.
underlined the representative of UN Human Rights in South America, Jan Jarab.
According to the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), there are currently 3,072 complaints against security forces, 136 formalized officers and only convictions.
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The constituent process in which Chile is immersed was created precisely in the protests and the plebiscite held on October 25, 2020 to change the current Constitution – inherited from the dictatorship – was the institutional solution that the country found to calm the crisis. (I)
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