Hundreds of protesters clashed with police in Santiago on Thursday, September 3 as opposition mounted against a security package proposed by Chilean President José Antonio Kast, with demonstrators warning that the measures resemble powers exercised during the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters marching through Plaza Italia, a traditional site of political demonstrations in the Chilean capital. Protesters chanted slogans comparing Kast to Pinochet and condemned what they described as an authoritarian turn by the government.
Kast, who took office in March, has made combating organized crime and illegal immigration a central pillar of his administration. The conservative president is the country’s most right-wing leader since the end of Pinochet’s military dictatorship in 1990.
At the center of the controversy are eight proposed constitutional amendments that would significantly expand executive powers in the name of public security. One proposal would allow the president to declare a state of emergency for up to eight months without congressional approval in cases deemed serious threats to public order.
The reforms would also grant authorities broad powers to restrict freedom of movement and assembly and permit the interception of communications in designated geographic areas.
Rights advocates, opposition parties, and even some figures within Kast’s governing coalition have criticized the proposals as excessive and potentially dangerous.
“He is giving himself powers that a president in a democracy shouldn’t have,” 22-year-old public administration student Camila Aramena.
The demonstrations reflect broader concerns that Chile’s political establishment is using rising crime rates to justify measures that could undermine civil liberties won after the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship, which ruled the country from 1973 to 1990 and was responsible for widespread political repression, torture, and enforced disappearances.
The Kast government argues that stronger security powers are necessary to confront a recent rise in violent crime and the growing presence of transnational criminal groups such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua. Chile’s homicide rate reached 5.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2025, roughly double the level recorded a decade earlier, according to the government.
Critics, however, contend that the proposed reforms go far beyond crime prevention and could be used to suppress dissent and social movements. The protests also come amid growing discontent over Kast’s hardline agenda on security, migration, and public order.
The constitutional amendments have yet to be debated in Congress, where they are expected to face significant opposition from progressive parties and human rights organizations.
