THREE CHILEAN doctors, including one who works for the Santiago archdiocesan Vicariate of Solidarity, were secretly detained by the government for about a month in May.
The Vicariate's doctor is Dr Manuel Almeyda Medina, who has been a witness in several suits on behalf of political prisoners claiming that they had been tortured. All three doctors also claimed to have been tortured during their detentions, according to the Vicariate's publication Solidarity. The government initially denied that they had been detained but after pressure from
the' Vicariate the security forces produced the prisoners and transferred them to the jurisdiction of a civilian court.
The doctors were charged with "illicit association" because some of their patients were said to be members of leftist organisations opposed to the government.
• An open letter protesting at the deterioration in the human rights situation in Chile was handed in to the Chilean embassy in London last week. It said that far from showing signs of. improvement the situation had witnessed "a dramatic turn for the worse" this year.