Chilean Congress condemns attacks against Jewish community

Jewish community is being attacked in Chile

Chile’s congress has unanimously condemned a recent uprising of racist attacks against the Jewish community across the country, and called upon the Chilean police-forces to maximize their efforts in identifying the culprits and organizations behind the attacks.

A new series of discriminatory acts were reported by Chile’s Jewish community last Friday. The last couple months have seen a worrying number of desecration to Jewish cemeteries and insulting messages and threats on synagogue and school walls.

More recently several members of the Jewish communities in Santiago, Conception and Temuco have received personal threats, including death threats to the leader of the Jewish community, lawyer Gabriel Zaliasnik, who reported that he has received a series of emails warning him that he and his family are being followed, followed by a phone call ending with “we will kill you, you bastard Jew!”

The Federal Prosecutors Office reports that a special team will be formed to look into the attacks, labeling them both “intolerable and unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, the attacks have lead the Jewish community in Chile to lobby for the accelerated approval of a bill that would punish discrimination on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. Should it pass, the bill would allow those affected by discriminatory acts to launch a complaint directly to an appeals court.