The initiative, approved by the Senate Human Rights Commission, will allow women aged 65 and men aged 70, or those with terminal illnesses, to serve the rest of their sentence under house arrest.

“I am concerned with this new pseudo-amnesty, which allows criminals to report their sentence at home,” said Carmen Gloria Quintana, who in 1986 was burned by a military patrol along with photographer Rodrigo Rojas.

Last Friday the Supreme Court sentenced a group of former soldiers to sentences of up to 20 years in prison for this crime. If this project is adopted, the prisoners will barely serve five years, Quintana warned. “If this were to be approved, it would be a new affront, very painful for me, my family and thousands of victims of human rights violations. It is a mechanism that seeks brutal impunity,” she added.

The proposal was promoted by the parliamentarians of the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos: Francisco Chahuán, Luciano Cruz-Coke, Rodrigo Galilea, Carlos Kuschel and Enrique van Rysselberghe, and will be submitted for discussion and vote at the plenary session.

“This is a measure clearly aimed at benefiting the inmates of the Punta Peuco prison, all of them convicted of crimes against humanity,” warned the Socialist Party, which expressed its energetic rejection of the virtual approval of that bill, which, it said, would mean a serious State breach of its duty to exercise justice.

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