During the meeting, President Boric pledged to keep open a space for constant collaboration, maintaining the human rights agenda as a pillar of his government’s policies
An Amnesty International delegation met with President Gabriel Boric today to discuss the human rights situation in the country and to deliver a document setting out priority issues in the agenda for dialogue between the Chilean government and the organization.
The delegation was led by Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, and Rodrigo Bustos, executive director of Amnesty International Chile. The priority issues they discussed with President Boric included: access to justice and police reform, sexual rights and reproductive justice, migration and refugee policy, inequality and access to the right to health, and Chile’s role in the protection of human rights in the region – particularly in the human rights crisis in Venezuela. The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Marcela Ríos, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Urrejola.
“President Gabriel Boric’s government has a historic opportunity to put rights at the center of state action in Chile and leave behind the previous government’s dismal legacy in terms of the serious and widespread human rights violations committed during the period of social unrest,” said Rodrigo Bustos.
“We welcome the new government’s willingness to take responsibility for its human rights obligations and to play a leading international role in this regard. President Boric’s administration has the opportunity to show an effective form of collaboration between states based on the protection of human rights. In the most unequal continent in the world, the Chilean state and other states in the region must focus on a just recovery that leaves no one out,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.
During the meeting, President Boric pledged to keep open a space for constant collaboration, maintaining the human rights agenda as a pillar of his government’s policies. In response to Amnesty International’s concerns about the lack of a comprehensive policy of reparations, the president expressed his commitment to ensure that victims of human rights violations are central to his government’s priority actions. He was also firm in his conviction to exercise a different kind of leadership and to condemn human rights crises in the rest of the region, without double standards or being influenced by the interests of the governments in power.
The delegation also met with the Minister of Health, Dr María Begoña Yarza Sáez, this morning to present her with a new joint report by Amnesty International and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). The report, “Unequal and Lethal: Five key actions to recover from the human rights crisis unleashed by the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean” will be published on Wednesday 27 April. The delegation will also hold a meeting this week with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Urrejola.
