The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, made an appeal on Tuesday to “contribute” to the release of Nicaragua’s political prisoners, and said during his speech at the 70th United Nations General Assembly that the problems that afflict the different societies are solved with “more democracy and not less”.
Boric called “to carry out the necessary actions, and not just declarations, and put an end to the abuse of the powerful anywhere in the world, to continue working to contribute to the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua.”
According to data endorsed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), currently in Nicaragua there are more than 200 political prisonersas a product of the local sociopolitical crisis.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Acnudh) reported a deterioration in the fulfillment of human rights in Nicaragua in the last four years, which include attacks against the freedoms of expression, assembly and mobilization, in addition to of actions against the press and the Catholic Church, which have driven hundreds of thousands of people into exile, including hundreds of journalists and dozens of religious.
“The way to face the problems that afflict our societies is paved with more democracy and not less, encouraging participation and not restricting it, promoting dialogue and never censoring it and, above all, respecting those who think differently,” said the president. .
Boric, a former student leader who last December became the youngest president in Chilean history, also stressed that “having different opinions does not make us enemies.”
“I rebel against the abyss that some try to dig before the legitimate diversity of opinions. From Chile we declare our will as builders of points in the face of these gaps that prevent us from meeting as diverse societies”, he added.
Chilean situation
The ruler recalled that Chile opted for democracy to solve the social outbreak of 2019, the largest wave of protests since the end of the military dictatorship, with thirty deaths, thousands of injuries and accusations against the security forces for violations of the human rights.
Boric thus reviewed the three years that Chile has lived since the riots and recalled that on September 4 an overwhelming majority of Chileans (62%) rejected in a plebiscite the proposal for a new Constitution drafted by a progressive-leaning convention elected after proposals.
“Some have wanted to see the result of the plebiscite as a defeat for my government. A government can never feel defeated when the people speak out”, he stressed.
The progressive president also warned that no country is exempt from suffering a social crisis like the one Chile experienced in 2019 because “inequality is a latent threat to democracy” and asked us to anticipate “social injustice.”
“We need a united voice from Latin America, more joint work from the global south, a modernized United Nations,” he concluded.
