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[27 August 2012] - Police officials announced the beginning of an investigation Monday into the alleged sexual abuse of student protesters last week by carabineros, Chile’s uniformed police. The announcement was made after a meeting between the carabineros’ Director General Gustavo González and three of the 10 students making the allegation. Muñoz did not, however, divulge the names or ranks of the alleged perpetrators “for the respect of those being investigated.” The students, accompanied by Sen. Juan Pablo Letelier of the Socialist Party (PS), expressed dissatisfaction with the results of Monday’s meeting. “The names must be made public; the people need to know the carabineros we have,” Ignacio Muñoz, who is in his final year of studies, told Radio BioBio. The students’ allegations have been highly publicised, and several leaders have spoken out against the protocol the carabineros have taken in addressing students’ protests. According to the students, the group of 10 (seven males, three females) were participating in a student occupation of the María Luisa Bombal School in Rancagua, 50 miles south of Santiago, when carabineros arrived and forcibly evicted them from the establishment. After bringing them into the police station, they were ordered to strip naked. They made me take off my clothes until I was in only my boxers,” said Ignacio Henríquez, who is in his first year of high school. “And then they told me to take off my boxers and I said ‘no’ and they yelled at me and said, ‘take them off or I’ll take them off for you.’” Alfonso Muñoz offered a different account. “In this procedure, there were minors, and according to the record, they were registered and some were asked to remove part of their clothing, but they were not completely undressed,” he said. In a press release, Carolina Schmidt, head of the National Service for Women (Sernam), assured the “administration would be ruthless” if the allegations of sexual abuse were true. Police forces in Chile have been facing increasing scrutiny since this weekend’s release of a report inThe New York Times about the need for human rights observers to monitor carabineros during student protests. According to the report, “acts of sexual humiliation” are increasingly being reported. Carabineros are also under scrutiny for actions during last Thursday’s student strikes, when they were accused of disregarding university sanctity, and allegedly sexual assaulted student protesters. According to El Mostrador, the NGO Ciudad Inclusiva announced their plans to present this case to Chile’s National Services for Minors (Sename) and UNICEF as a violation of children’s rights. Further Information:
pdf: http://www.santiagotimes.cl/chile/human-rights-a-law/25086-chilean-polic...