Electronic Petition to ask Canadian government to denounce the human right abuses in Chile
Following up on the PHABC conference last month discussion related to health inequalities and human right violations in Chile, Paola Ardiles, Past President of PHABC, met with the Policy Advocacy Research and Communication Committee to obtain permission to circulate an electronic petition to the House of Commons to ask Canadian government to denounce the human right abuses in Chile.
We are asking PHABC members to consider:
- Signing the House of Commons electronic petition:
English: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2302
French: https://petitions.noscommunes.ca/fr/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2302
Any Canadian citizen or resident can sign (no age minimum), even if you are living abroad. It only takes 2 minutes.
- Sharing the e-petition on your social media and/or via email to friends, family and colleagues.
Background
You may have heard about the cancellation of some high profile global meetings scheduled in Chile this fall, such as the 26th Cochrane Colloquium, the International Climate Change Summit COP25 and Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) leaders’ meeting. They were cancelled due to the crisis in Chile that started in mid-October due to a massive social uprising and military crackdown that occurred when President Piñera declared a state of emergency on Oct 1, 2019.
Since that date, human rights watch groups including the National Institute for Human Rights in Chile, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch and United Nations have reported 400+ criminal complaints allegedly committed by security forces; deaths, sexual violence, tortures, detention of children and thousands wounded and admitted to hospital. More than 350 people have lost their eyesight due to severe ocular wounds caused by non-lethal lead ammunitions banned by UN. Political responsibilities have not being persecuted yet.
The root cause of the social unrest is the decades of neoliberal economics and policies that were established with the Constitution of 1980 under the Pinochet dictatorship, with zero participation of civil society. Today, Chile has the largest social inequities in all the OECD countries.
Here is an article in Lancet on health inequalities in Chile as one of the root causes of unrest:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32720-5/fulltext
Where can you get more information in English?
Follow @Van4Chile
or visit: http://www.van4chile.ca/ under media links
Please help spread the word however you can.
Thank you for your solidarity.
Paola Ardiles Gamboa BSc (Hons) MHSc MBA
@Paola_A_Ardiles
