Dozens of people march in the center of Santiago de Chile, on December 11, demanding the release of those detained during the wave of protests that broke out in October 2019.ELVIS GONZALEZ / EFE
A group of parliamentarians from the left and center left of the Chilean opposition has presented in Congress a bill of general pardon for the benefit of those investigated, accused and convicted of crimes committed in the framework of the social unrest of October 2019, marked by unprecedented levels of violence.
The president, Sebastián Piñera, announced that he will veto the initiative, if it is successful, because it would leave crimes such as attempted homicide, arms trafficking, arson, use of Molotov cocktails, looting, attacks against the Santiago metro network and transportation without punishment. public and serious injuries to the carabinieri.
The Ministry of the Interior counts 232 people in preventive detention accused of serious crimes in those months.
Both the Executive and various human rights experts have rejected the existence of political prisoners in Chile, as did José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“All the people who today are detained for the serious crimes that the project of a group of senators tries to pardon, are deprived of liberty not by decision of the Government or the Prosecutor's Office, but by decision of the judiciary, which is an autonomous power in the country, "said Piñera last Monday at the Palacio de La Moneda.
"Attempts against public order, citizen security, democracy and the rule of law."
The initiative has been promoted by the president of the Senate, Adriana Muñoz, and the socialist senator Isabel Allende, daughter of the former president, among other congressmen from the left and center-left.
The proposal has generated a deep debate in Chilean society and among the highest authorities of the country.
The national prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, assured that the project "normalizes violence and common crime in social coexistence", which he considers "of absolute gravity."
The spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, Judge Gloria Ana Chevesich, stated that "one must have the certainty and tranquility that the judges do not fail according to the political or ideological position that an accused may have."
Even part of the opposition itself has rejected a bill of these characteristics.
"It does not seem correct to me," said the former president of the Republic between 1994 and 2000, the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.
“These people are being detained not for political reasons or because they took to the streets to express their ideas.
If they were arrested, they must go to court and they have to be sentenced ”.
The authors of the bill are based on “humanitarian reasons” to grant an exceptional and general pardon to the prisoners of the Chilean social outbreak, for acts committed between October 7, 2019 and the presentation of this initiative.
In the text, the congressmen argue that the riots are explained "by the serious inequalities and abuses experienced by the Chilean population" and point to the "arrests and disproportionate use of force to confront these conflicts by state agents", which they were informed by international organizations, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Human Rights Watch (HRW).
For the senators, "acts that have characteristics of crime, committed by citizens, are punishable from a criminal perspective."
But they add: "There has been a process distorted by a disproportionate state response followed by massive arrests and the opening of multiple criminal proceedings, abuses and violations of the procedural guarantees of the accused, which has meant preventive deprivation of liberty in unjustified deadlines that would not take place in normal circumstances ”.
According to the project, "the social and economic profile of the people affected by the confinements and judicial processes, corresponds to young people who have lived in poverty or in social marginalization", so the formalistic requirement is "at least questionable that these young people are formulated or reproached by the political and judicial system, of a socially adequate conduct ”.
The project will be discussed next Monday in the Senate human rights commission, where authorities, activists and families of detainees will be heard.
In Congress, the opposition to the Piñera government is a majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
But, although the senators' initiative does not generate consensus even among opponents, making it difficult for it to reach 22 of the 43 votes required for its approval, the actions of Congress are unpredictable, as has been demonstrated in recent months. .
Neither the government nor the parties currently control their own parliamentarians.
The national prosecutor assured that he has "the total certainty that there are no people currently in preventive detention as a result of some political conviction or for having simply participated in disorders."
According to the General Council of Prosecutors, the initiative of the opposition parliamentarians "could constitute a very serious signal for social coexistence," according to a statement released Monday.
Prosecutors cited an example: "It would nullify, among other causes, the sentence to 11 years in prison imposed on John Cobin, for attempted murder and the Arms Control Law", after shooting on November 10, 2019 in the open street in the city of Viña del Mar, about a hundred kilometers from Santiago de Chile.
Between October and November 2019, unprecedented levels of violence were registered in the framework of social unrest, although these events lasted at least until March of this year, when the pandemic and mobility restrictions broke out.
"Not even the transition from the Pinochet dictatorship to democracy had these levels of destruction," said former President Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) in an interview with EL PAIS at the end of last year.
It is described by the architect Iván Poduje in his book Siete Kabezas, an urban chronicle of the social outbreak: “… 27 burned stations affected the mobility of two million people.
Then came looting and riots that spread to more than 40 cities in the country, leaving thousands of protesters and police officers injured.
Some 500 national monuments were vandalized and about 100 buildings received arson attacks, including museums, churches, cultural centers, shopping galleries located in central and symbolic places ”.
According to the author, "the attacks did not respect creeds or ideologies."