![[Freelance]](../gif/fl3H.png)
Chile coup’s half-century
THIS COMING 11 September marks 50 years since President Salvador Allende of Chile was overthrown in a bloody coup that ushered in the 16-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Thousands of people were illegally detained, tortured, killed or "disappeared" between 1973 and Pinochet stepping down in 1990.
I covered the struggle against the dictatorship as a photojournalist during the 1980s for the international press - and also produced an exhibition for Amnesty International, the human rights organisation, to use for its continuing campaign on human rights violations in that country.
Protesting the Chile coup, International Women's Day 1985
Protesters attacked with tear gas, International Women's Day 1985
At that time, it was difficult for citizens to protest on the streets, since the regime ruthlessly repressed all acts of dissidence, and attempted to conceal from the outside world what was happening in the big prison that the country had become.
International Women's Day in 1985 in Santiago was a turning point. A group of brave women defied the curfew imposed by the military and went downtown to demand freedom for the political detainees and a halt to the rising cost of living and to press for information about the fate of those who had disappeared a decade earlier.
Journalists being chased by a water cannon
It was very difficult for both local and foreign journalists to be visible on the streets, and this image captures the moment when a film crew was chased by a water cannon while trying to cover a flash demonstration by a group of dissidents.