Chilean Congress to consider recommendations of torture commission

Published: 2004-12-09

SANTIAGO, Chile (CNS) -- The Chilean Congress will consider recommendations from a national commission on torture, including a proposal to grant torture victims preferential treatment in educational, health and housing services. The proposal, already accepted by the Chilean administration, would create a national institute for human rights and provide torture victims with a small monthly pension that would cost the state about $70 million a year. The proposal will be introduced in Congress Dec. 14 and is expected to become law by Jan. 31. The recommendations were contained in a government-commissioned report outlining the methods, places and victims of torture during the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The National Commission on Political Prisoners and Torture, which issued the report, was headed by Bishop Sergio Valech Aldunate, the 77-year-old retired auxiliary of Santiago who has extensive human rights experience. The report is an unprecedented effort to register the scope of torture in Chile and offer public moral acknowledgment to torture victims, estimated to total nearly 100,000.

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