Valech Commission

The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) was a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November 29, 2004 and detailed the results of a six-month investigation. A revised version was released on June 1, 2005. The commission was reopened in February 2010 for eighteen months, adding more cases.

The commission found that 38,254 people had been imprisoned for political reasons and that most had been tortured. It also found that thirty people "disappeared" or had been executed in addition to those recorded by the earlier Rettig Report.

Testimony has been classified, and will be kept secret for the next fifty years. Therefore, the records cannot be used in trials concerning human rights violations, in contrast to the "Archives of Terror" in Paraguay and Operation Condor. Associations of ex-political prisoners have been denied access to the testimony.

The report was prepared at the request of President Ricardo Lagos by the eight-member National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture headed by Bishop Sergio Valech and was made public via the Internet. The commission included: María Luisa Sepúlveda (executive vice president), lawyers Miguel Luis Amunátegui, Luciano Fouillioux, José Antonio Gómez (PRSD president), Lucas Sierra, Álvaro Varela and psychologist Elizabeth Lira. It did not include any representative of the victims or members of the associations of ex-political prisoners.

The initial report was based on testimony given to the commission by 35,865 people, of which 27,255 were regarded as "direct victims". Of these, 94% said they were tortured. Eleven people were born in prison, and ninety-one underage children were detained with their parents (including four unborn babies); these were not considered "direct victims". Another group of 978 people were minors at the time of their arrest. Four women were pregnant at the time of their arrest and were tortured; their children were considered "direct victims". A child who was the result of a rape while in prison was also considered a "direct victim". Victims were detained for six months, on average.

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