ES - FR

Since October 19th 2019, demonstrations against economic and social inequalities have been violently repressed by the police forces in Chile. Police, authorized by President Piñera’s government, is using non-letal weapons such as 12 gauge shotgun rifles with rubber bullets made of lead, ground glass and silica sand (SuperSock).

The Human Rights National Institute registered between October 19th and November 25th 2808 injured people, of those, 1737 by shotgun. Victims of eye injrues are 294. Only in Santiago, until November 21st, Hospital Salvador’s Eye Traumatology Unit received 220 victims of this injury, 33 of those lost vision in one of their eyes.

This amount of victims shows that not only how the government and police forces are not willing to respect protocols to maintain public order, but how the abuse is seriously injuring citizens who continue demonstrating in Chile.

According to recent data, in only one month, victims of eye damage represents more than 70% of world victims in 27 years (medical magazine BMJ Open, 2017).

We want to call on the public international opinion over systematic and generalized human rights violations against citizens registered on International Amnesty and Human Rights Watch reports, that police have ignored while keep shooting rubber bullets, tear gas bombs and superstock bullets pointed deliberately to protester’s head and abdominal-thoracic area.
We added the testimonies of corrosive chemical products used in water cannons which caused hight intensity burns in citizens.

President Sebastián Piñera; Mr. Gonzalo Blumel, Minister of Interior responsible for the Police: We demand the immediate ban of chemical weapons as well as the
generalized using out of protocol of bullets.

The Chilean government has enough political and legal tools to channel legitimate claims in a peaceful way while respecting freedom of speech as well as the rule of law.