Beaten, mutilated and forced to undress: Inside Chile's brutal police crackdown against protesters

Security forces have deliberately shot demonstrators in the eyes and forced those arrested to strip naked. Some of those affected tell Naomi Larsson

@naomilars
1 day ago



Demonstrators take cover as they clash with riot police during a protest against the government ( AFP/Getty )

Breathing air thick with teargas and smoke from makeshift barricades on Valparaiso’s street corners, Carla Casoni remembers feeling her skin and eyes burn with the chemical-infused water used as a common police tactic to disperse demonstrators.

“I lost vision temporarily so I was an easy target for the police,” she says. Casoni is one of nearly 30,000 people who have been detained, many arbitrarily, in more than two months of unrest that has swept across Chile.

Just days before Casoni’s detention in the port city on 22 October, Chile had imploded into a social uprising initially sparked by a student protest over metro fare hikes in Santiago. People across the country have since mobilised against economic and social inequality, engaging in mostly peaceful but sometimes violent protests.

Over the weeks, protests have been met with state repression. Soon after the unrest began, President Sebastian Pinera sent military to the streets and issued a curfew, declaring authorities “are at war”. In the following two months, security forces have been accused by rights groups of brutality and a series of human rights abuses, including torture and sexual violence.

More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chile-protest-police-violence-nudity-human-rights-a9294656.html