Piñera to The Hague

Cultural and political demonstration to demand respect for Human Rights in Chile.

October 16th 2021, from 13:00 to 17:00 hrs. Dam Square, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The following video made by Slow Edit Amsterdam contains part of this demonstration:

On the second anniversary of the Chilean social outbreak, several European-based social, political and Human Rights organisations have come together to demand truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition for the systematic Human Rights violations committed by agents of the Chilean State, endorsed by the criminal government of S. Piñera.

The most important national and international Human Rights organisations have recorded and reported hundreds of eye injuries caused by the impact of rubber bullets or teargas cans, torture, deaths, sexual abuse, illegal detentions and a series of other abuses and serious Human Rights violations.

Likewise, the justice system criminalises and sanctions thousands of participants in legitimate social protest, sending them to jail and opening legal proceedings against them, without reliable evidence. Hundreds of them have been sent to pre-trial detention accused of violating the State’s Internal Security Law. To this day, dozens of them have been in prison for almost two years, at the insistence of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Prosecutor’s Office. They are mainly young, with no prior criminal record, victims of Political Prison (*).

For these reasons, based on the “principle of complementarity” of international law (Article 17 of the Rome Statute), we support the accusation presented before the International Criminal Court against S. Piñera for his crimes against humanity, by a series of Human Rights organisations, with former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón. And we demand his international judgment, through a series of political and cultural activities, which will take place in the cities of Amsterdam and The Hague, in the Netherlands.

In that context, as collective Chile Woke Up the Netherlands, thanks to the support of the organisation for Latin American Action the Netherlands (OLAA), we have organised a political and cultural demonstration for Saturday, October 16th, starting at 13:00 hrs. in Dam Square, Amsterdam, where we will meet a series of social and political organisations, musicians, dancers, artists and activists from different cities of Europe who support legitimate social protest in Chile and Latin America.

Each and everyone is invited to participate in this demonstration that calls for justice, dignity and peace for the people of Chile!

(*) For more information about Political Prisoners you can consult our special report.

Chile Despertó Holanda Events Protest Amsterdam Political Prisoners Politics The Netherlands

April 17: protest on the International Day of the Political Prisoner in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

On the International Day of the Political Prisoner, the Chilean community in the Netherlands joins the call for justice and immediate freedom for all political prisoners in Chile and Wallmapu. Before the international community, Chile presents itself as a free and democratic state, but the figures presented by national and international organizations that defend human rights say otherwise. Every day we receive videos in which we see images of how the human rights of the Chilean citizens are being violated. However, our politicians do nothing and state agents of the Forces of Order and Security act with total impunity.

On May 15 and 16, there will be elections to elect constituents to draft a new constitution. This process would not have been possible if thousands of citizens had not demonstrated throughout Chile. Today many of those protesters are in prison and face absurd sentences. Every week new citizens are being imprisoned without evidence that they have committed any crime. To the government of Chile we say: enough of criminalizing social leaders and those who exercise the free right to demonstrate for a better Chile.

Freedom to all political prisoners in Chile, including Mapuche political prisoners!