After noon this Tuesday, the UDI parliamentarians, Luz Ebensperguer and Jorge Alessandri, together with the mayor of La Florida, Rodolfo Carter, presented a draft amnesty law for police and military officials who have been convicted or formalized for crimes committed in the context of social unrest.
From the El Pensador hall, of the Chamber of Deputies, Senator Ebensperguer explained that the initiative is presented to “equate the gestures” that the State has had with the victims of repression with the Law Enforcement and Security Forces officials who were involved in this type of case.
“What is this general amnesty project looking for? “It seeks to match the gestures that have been made,” said the senator, while calling on President Gabriel Boric to call “his parliamentarians and turn what he has constantly said into action,” referring to the president’s support for police institutions.
As detailed in the project submitted to the Senate this afternoon, the amnesty contemplates the period from October 7, 2019, until December 9, 2020, and would benefit Carabineros, PDI and Army officials who have been convicted or formalized for crimes of coercion. illegitimate.
Alessandri, for his part, appealed that the project seeks to “recompose” relations in the country and “start to forgive and walk together.”
Along these lines, the UDI deputy explained that “this project aims to give an amnesty by general law to everyone who wore the uniform and went out to defend the republic, to everyone who is being investigated, formalized or convicted during the period of the social outbreak” and questioned that “it is not enough to pardon some and reward some with a pardon, if you leave the others relegated to the dungeon.”
Carter, who was also at the press point, pointed out that it is not possible to ask the police to fight crime, if there are uniformed officers imprisoned for crimes related to the 2019 protests.
“Not only do we have to meet again, we have to face the common enemy that is crime and organized crime. The police cannot be asked to do their thing if the Gonzalo de la Costa (carabinero in preventive detention investigated for causing eye trauma to a protester) continue to be victims throughout Chile,” Carter noted.
On the other hand, Carter clarified that in the event that the project sees the light, The general director of Carabineros, Ricardo Yáñez – who will be formalized on May 7 – would benefit from the amnesty.
“It seeks to establish a cloak of impunity”
When consulted by El Desconcert, Amnesty Chile questioned the project presented by the UDI. The executive director of the institution, Rodrigo Bustos, warned that legislative initiatives like these They seek to “establish impunity for cases of human rights violations”.
“In the social outbreak there were serious violations of the right to life, to physical and mental integrity, there were eye injuries, brutal beatings, and what this project seeks is to establish a cloak of impunity, and when there is impunity, it is most likely that history will repeat itself”says Bustos.
In that sense, the director of Amnesty Chile explains that the project would be “unconstitutional” since “it would go against obligations established in human rights treaties that are incorporated in the Constitution.”
“They raise the demand for the State to investigate and clarify human rights violations, punish them proportionally, compensate the victims and advance guarantees of non-repetition. A possible law like this that seeks to establish impunity would violate international human rights treaties. In the words of the Inter-American Court, it would be a measure contrary to the American Convention on Human Rights,” says Bustos.
