Three women stabbed by masked group at anti-abortion protest in Chile
Three women who were protesting in favour of free, safe and legal abortion have been stabbed in Chile.
The women and a police officer were attacked by a masked group of people wearing hoods in the capital of Santiago on Wednesday.
The individuals received medical attention but their injuries were not life-threatening. One of the women was injured in the stomach and the two others in the legs.
Around 40,000 women descended on the city to march, holding signs reading: “Women marching until we are free” and “The rich pay for it, the poor bleed out.”
People who attended the protests said anti-abortion extremists are responsible for the stabbings but no suspects have been arrested.
Ale Silva, a resident of Santiago who is pro-abortion, told Newshub the group were men from a far-right group.
“It very easily could have been me or any of my friends. They were targeted because they were women and were marching, as it so usually happens... pro-lifers stabbing people, the irony,” she said.
She claimed the Chilean media ignored the attack – the country’s chiefly right wing media initially did not cover the stabbings.
While a small far right group known as the Social Patriot movement claimed responsibility for the counter-protest, they denied being involved in the stabbings.
They instead attributed the violence to “anarcho-feminists”.
A spokesperson for Mesa de Accion por el Aborto – one of the groups leading the struggle for access to free abortion in the country – branded the stabbings “terrorism”.
“This is terrorism. I don’t want to call it any other way. When a group wants to intimidate another to keep them from expressing their ideas freely,” Macarena Castaneda said.
►https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/santiago-anti-abortion-women-stabbed-chile-protest-a8469786.html
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