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(CNN Spanish) - The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, published a video on Thursday that clarifies that the statements he made during the Oppenheimer program presented by CNN in Spanish about foreign participation in demonstrations and the abuse of human rights "They do not reflect your thinking or intention."
In the interview on December 11, Andrés Oppenheimer asked Piñera to give some examples of false messages, as the president denounced. In his response, Piñera said that “we have done a study of millions of communications through social networks and many of them come outside of Chile. The vast majority of them are to cause more disorder, more demonstrations, more lack of control, more civil disobedience. ” Piñera also added that “many of the news, of the videos related to human rights that have been widely disseminated in Chilean and foreign media, do not correspond to reality. There are many of them that are fake, filmed outside of Chile and that are misrepresented and therefore we have had to face a campaign of misinformation. ”
Those first statements of Piñera were criticized and questioned by various sectors.
In an interview with Radio Duna in Chile, the director of the National Institute of Human Rights, Sergio Micco, said that “we have indeed seen videos that are from other moments of our national or foreign history” but clarified that “the videos that we have seen they are - in their vast majority - true ”.
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Micco also said that the officials of the institute have witnessed 247 demonstrations, visited 61 hospitals or health centers and made more than 1,300 visits to police stations and, from that work, “there have been evidently, serious and numerous violations of the human rights".
In the video published on Thursday, Piñera said that “regarding an interview I gave to the CNN television channel I want to share with my countrymen some reflections: The defense of the human rights of all, at all times, in all places and in all circumstances It has been a guiding principle that has guided me all my life. ”
The president concludes his message by reiterating that his Government is committed to respecting human rights. “Because I am convinced that the value of respect for the human rights of all lives deeply in the soul and in the heart of all Chileans,” said Piñera.
Different institutions such as the OAS, the National Institute of Human Rights in Chile and the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, have published reports detailing abuses by the Carabineros de Chiles to protesters by the Carabineros of Chile during the social protests that began in October.
The Government of Sebastian Piñera announced a restructuring of that institution, among other measures, to guarantee respect for human rights.
InterviewSebastián Piñera