CHILE:
Sexual Minorities Report Gay Bashing, But Greater Recognition
Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, (IPS) - The Chilean Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH) will press charges next week against several Carabineros (militarised police) for brutally beating a man three times in a single night.

The violent Dec. 22 attacks on Manuel, a 32-year-old security guard, are described in the latest MOVILH report on the human rights situation of sexual minorities in Chile, presented Tuesday in Santiago.

But the 152-page document also highlights positive findings, such as a fall in complaints about homophobia from 58 cases in 2005 to 49 in 2006 -- a 15 percent drop.

Manuel told IPS he was beaten up three times by Carabineros in the early hours of Dec. 22, 2006. The first time was at the doors of a well-known gay disco in central Santiago, the second at a police station and the last in a police vehicle.

According to his account, he was at the door of the disco that night waiting for the police to examine the injuries of a friend who had just been attacked.

But when the Carabineros arrived, the nightmare began as they unexpectedly started kicking and punching him.

Manuel said the Carabineros took his cellphone, worth 200,000 pesos (about 500 dollars), a silver chain and the keys to his house. The Carabineros accused him of being drunk and creating a disturbance in the disco, but he denies even having been inside the establishment.

Next week his lawsuit for aggression and robbery will be presented to the military prosecutor's office. Administrative procedures are going ahead in the relevant police stations.

"We will not rest until the Carabineros are dismissed from the force and are brought to trial," MOVILH's president Rolando Jiménez said at the release of the 5th Report on Human Rights for Sexual Minorities in Chile.

In spite of the fall in reports of homophobia, some events in 2006 were more violent than in previous years, and the main perpetrators of many of them were officers charged with protecting public safety.

Actions by some members of the police against gays, lesbians, transvestites and transgender persons were by far the most negative events in 2006, Jiménez told IPS.

"The Carabineros high command have not taken a proactive stance," in contrast to the Department of Investigations (civil police), said the activist.

"It has been over seven years since we've received any complaints against the civil police, because the former director of the force, Nelson Mery, implemented a policy of human rights education for the force," he added.

The record over the past five years is not encouraging. Between 2002 and 2006, 267 cases of discrimination based on the victim's sexual orientation or gender identity were recorded. Nine of these were murder cases, two of which took place in 2006.

However, Jiménez emphasised that 2006 "was characterised by a consolidation of the sexual minorities movement, and by greater occupation of public spaces by gay, transgender and lesbian people," as an estimated 28,000 people took to the streets to demonstrate for their rights in different parts of the country.

Last year many positive things happened from the sexual minorities' point of view, the report said. These included meetings between MOVILH representatives and two traditionally conservative institutions, the Catholic Church bishops’ conference and the Christian Democrat Party, which forms part of the governing coalition.

The first lawsuit for kidnapping based on sexual orientation was also brought against security guards of a well-known shopping mall in the capital.

The case was settled out of court, after the mall owners apologised to the victims and paid them a hefty indemnity.

MOVILH is also pleased with the five-year jail term handed down to a Carabinero for assaulting a transsexual, as well as with the first seminar for deaf gays and lesbians, and the creation of the First National Transgender Alliance.

Jiménez expressed hopes that a draft law against discrimination, sponsored by MOVILH, will by promulgated by Chile's socialist President Michelle Bachelet in late March or early April. The law is in the final stages of the approval process in Congress.

He was also optimistic about the draft law on civil unions, drawn up by MOVILH and the human rights programme of the Faculty of Law at the private Diego Portales University, to protect the social and inheritance rights of gay and lesbian couples and of unmarried heterosexual couples.

In 2006 these two institutions presented the text of the draft law on civil unions to the government, representatives of the Catholic Church, and members of Congress from all political parties. Jiménez said it was favourably received.

In March MOVILH's directors will meet with Minister Secretary General of the Presidency Paulina Veloso, to find out if the executive branch is willing to back the initiative and send the draft law to Congress.

If the Bachelet government decides not to support it, the proposal will be introduced in Congress in the second half of the year by deputies and senators.

Jiménez said he was sure that civil unions would be legalised before the end of Bachelet's term in 2010.