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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights He called during this day to carry out an “exhaustive” investigation of the events that occurred last Friday, October 2, at the Pío Nono Bridge when a police officer caused the fall of a 16-year-old youth towards the Mapocho River, in the framework of the demonstrations that they were held that day in the Plaza Italia sector.
In addition, it appreciated the inquiries initiated by the Public Ministry promptly and expressed solidarity with the adolescent and his family.
In a statement, the international body – headed by High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet – stated that “It is necessary to investigate and, if appropriate, judge and punish not only the individual responsibility of the Carabineros official directly involved, but also investigate the possible responsibility of the commanders in charge of the operation, since the omission of assistance by Carabineros to the victim who had to be helped by other protesters and civilian rescuers ”.
On this, the representative of the entity for South America, Jan Jarab, indicated that “the civil rescuers deserve all the recognition and support of Chilean society.”
On the other hand, they stated that “The continuous and unconditional support to the forces of order and security is of concern, as they are repeated behaviors. I call for the patterns to be identified and the causes that favor these behaviors to be analyzed ”.
According to the Office, what happened last Friday “is not exceptional” but rather adds to the “already extensive list of other cases of human rights violations by the forces of order” committed in the context of social demonstrations, which have been recognized in various reports by the OHCHR, Human Right Watch, Amnesty International and the NHRI.
For this reason, Jarab emphasized that a profound reform of the security and order forces is necessary “that has as its pillars the professionalization of its agents, human rights training, subordination to civil authority and especially, accountability mechanisms in all levels”.
In addition, they added, it is necessary to address the structural causes of conflict in society, such as socioeconomic inequality and social inequality: “The State must protect the human rights of all people in conditions of equality and non-discrimination.”
Just last Sunday, the judge of the 7th Guarantee Court of Santiago decreed preventive detention for the policeman Sebastián Zamora (22) – who is charged with the crime of attempted homicide – after considering that the freedom of the uniformed man represents a danger to the security of society. At the same time, it set an investigation period of 120 days and ordered the prohibition of approaching the adolescent by Carabineros officials.
He Director for the Americas of Human Right Watch, José Miguel Vivanco, He stated this morning at 24H that “the diagnosis is clear. Carabineros is a force that for several decades, since the recovery of democracy in Chile, has not undergone a profound reform.
“The different governments since Aylwin have been primarily concerned with increasing the number of staff and giving them some instruments to control demonstrations, but no serious effort has been made to improve training, the training of non-commissioned officers and officers, and especially having rigorous, reliable mechanisms to preserve discipline within the Carabineros and exemplarily sanction those who deviate from the protocols, ”he said.
Thus, he added that “As long as these reforms do not advance in Chile, unfortunately our prognosis is that this type of abuse, these behaviors where an evident excessive use of force or a mismanagement of force, supposedly non-lethal, is demonstrated”.
“Carabineros is an institution that tends to respond corporately to this type of complaint, where the usual is cover-up”, sVivanco argued that he added that “there is a historical resistance from the high command of the institution to allow an inspection by the political authorities of Chile, of that I have no doubt.”
