OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION N°4 OF THE RECTORY

La Serena, October 25, 2019.

Dear ULS Community:

Within the framework of the state of exception that our country is experiencing and considering that as the University of La Serena we have the duty to reject any situation that affects the violation of fundamental rights of our Community, we inform that since Tuesday, October 22, a team of professionals from our house of higher education, led by Ms. Elizabeth Escobar Toro, Legal Advice Lawyer and Ms. Patricia Astroza Morgan, Social Assistant of the General Directorate of Student Affairs (DGAE), together with the lawyer Carlos Magna, Director of the Law School, they have been working on the task of supporting students who have been detained in recent days, in the context of demonstrations or curfew.

The corresponding School Directors or Career Coordinators have joined them.

In this area, we have had the advice of the Regional Prosecutor Mr. Adrián Vega Cortés, the Regional Defender Mrs. Inés Rojas Varas and the Public Criminal Defender Mr. Carlos Esperguen Sepúlveda.

Likewise, guidance has been requested from the team of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), an institution that has supported our management as a University, in order to go to verify the status of the students while they have been detained.

In this sense, coordinated by the University, all the aforementioned entities have supported the task of advising students' complaints, either through the Human Rights Institute or through the Public Ministry directly.

It should be noted that we have contacted each of the affected students and their families, with the idea of ​​providing them with guidance on the measures to be adopted.

Along these same lines, the lawyer Mr. Efraín Villalobos, Director of the Care Center for Victims of Violent Crimes of the Judicial Assistance Corporation (CAVI), has been contacted, with whom we have managed psychological containment with professionals specializing in the subject.

It is worth noting that the Work Commission identified above will have the respective safe-conduct passes, in case its work must be carried out during travel restriction hours due to curfew status.

In conclusion, I would like to confirm that as a State University we have not been oblivious to the social problems that we as a country are going through, where the social inequality that we have faced in recent years has been strongly expressed, with the aim of obtaining better living conditions for all. the Chileans.

Emphatically point out that we reject violence in any of its forms, and that today more than ever our corporate values ​​of social responsibility, pluralism and participation are gaining strength; and as a state university, it is a duty to put them into practice for the benefit of the community under a climate of respect, tolerance and democratic dialogue.

For this reason, we will be vigilant against any action that violates fundamental rights of members of the university community and report it to the pertinent authority.

Finally, it should be noted that due to the latest events and considering that there is still a climate of social insecurity that puts people's integrity at risk, it has been established to extend the suspension of all academic and administrative activities until Wednesday, October 30 inclusive.

Dr. Nibaldo Aviles Pizarro

Rector