Chile's President Backs Carabineros Amid a Rise in Police Abuse

Chile's President Sebastian Piñera Tuesday reaffirmed his support for the Military Police (Carabineros) despite the people's growing complaints against police brutality.

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"I deeply support Chile's Carabineros for protecting public order and citizen security," Piñera said after lamenting the violent incident in which a policeman pushed a teenager from a 7-meter-height bridge into the Mapocho River on October 2.

"Carabineros must use all the instruments that the law grants them, such as the use of legitimate and proportional force, to guarantee peace and security," the president recognized.

Piñera made these statements less than twenty days before the plebiscite, which will allow Chileans to decide whether to write a new Constitution or maintain the one created in 1980 by Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

The far-right president urged the Carabineros and the government not to allow human rights violations to go unpunished, and to sanction the perpetrators before the courts.