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The UN denounces " serious " and " repeated " human rights violations in Chile since the protests began in mid-October, in a report released on Friday, December 13. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has communicated the results of the visit of one of its delegations to the country to local authorities.
With our correspondent in Santiago , Justine Fontaine
" Excessive use of force ", " torture ", " sexual violence ", or " arbitrary arrests ": this is what the delegation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights documented during his visit to Chile, between the end of October and the end of November.
The reporters accuse the police of failing to distinguish between peaceful and violent protesters. They believe that the authorities have been slow to react and that they have not taken sufficient measures to try to avoid these human rights violations.
Lorena Recabarren, Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Chilean government of Sebastian Pinera, partially challenges the report's findings. " It seems to us important, as a government, to clarify and clarify several assertions and conclusions of the report, which, from our point of view, contain erroneous information, are not updated, or are not faithfully described ", a- she declared.
Read also: Chilean President condemns violence against demonstrators
The government emphasizes that it only sent soldiers on the street for ten days and to deal with serious disturbances of public order. The Secretary of State also listed several measures that are being implemented within the police.
But as recently as Tuesday, several people were hit in the head by tear gas canisters during a demonstration. A 15-year-old girl is still between life and death.
■ Disproportionate repression
Imma Guerras-Delgado is the head of mission of the High Commission in Chile:
“ The majority of assemblies and marches have been peaceful. Yet they have been managed in a fundamentally repressive manner. Since October 18 there have been a high number of serious human rights violations. These abuses include excessive and unjustified excessive use of violence which has resulted in the arbitrary death of victims as well as cases of torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence and arbitrary detention. We have also seen that certain groups, such as the medical teams treating the demonstrators, had to face obstacles to do their work. We also refer specifically to journalists. Some were injured while serving as journalists. In some cases they have lost an eye. "