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Original article: “La seguridad no es un chiste”: PS apunta a Steinert y llevará a Contraloría tuit borrado sobre Temucuicui

«Safety Is No Joke»: Socialist Party Targets Steinert and Will Report Deleted Tweet on Temucuicui to the Comptroller

The Socialist Party (PS) parliamentary delegation made it clear that «safety is no joke,» stating they will formally request the Comptroller to investigate the circumstances surrounding a message posted and quickly deleted from the Public Security Ministry’s X account about Minister Trinidad Steinert and a controversial operation. This operation was reported by the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui as part of a manipulative communication strategy, which violated rights and criminalized Mapuche families.

The operation, conducted in the early hours of Wednesday in the La Araucanía region, involved a joint deployment between Carabineros and the Public Ministry—with logistical support from the Chilean Army—and resulted in five arrests. It seemed to present the image of territorial control that José Kast’s administration aims to project to the public.

Minister Steinert herself took to social media to celebrate the results of the raid executed under Law 20.000. However, the event became overshadowed by a message published on the official Security Ministry’s X account (formerly Twitter), which, despite being online for less than twenty minutes, sparked a controversy to be scrutinized by the supervising body.

“While the previous government entered Temucuicui with gunfire, Minister (Trinidad) Steinert exited with five arrests,” read the deleted post, referencing the unsuccessful attempt to access the area in 2022 by then-Interior Minister Izkia Siches during the presidency of Gabriel Boric.

In light of the controversy, La Tercera contacted the Ministry of Security, which merely justified the incident as a social media manager error that led to the immediate removal of the post.

«Safety Requires Seriousness and Responsibility, and It’s No Joke»

Due to the seriousness of the situation, the opposition has decided to act, with the head of the Socialist parliamentary group, Raúl Leiva, announcing they will report to the General Comptroller for an investigation into the circumstances of the published and deleted message.

«It’s outrageous to see such a post from the official Ministry of Public Security account, which trivializes a very complex situation,» Leiva stated, as quoted by El Mostrador.

“We will take action with the Comptroller because this is already a recurring issue. The government has already been notified by the Comptroller about the instruction for an administrative summary when social media was used negatively or harmfully; this is that case. Safety requires seriousness and responsibility, and it’s no joke,» the legislator concluded.

In Leiva’s opinion, «the joke appears to be the posts being made by the Ministry of Security.»

«That is unacceptable,» he pointed out.

Temucuicui Claims Manipulative Communication and Rights Violations

However, the conflict is not limited to the ‘error’ made by the social media manager of the Ministry of Security. Simultaneously, the Temucuicui Autonomous Community has denounced that during the violent raid executed by Carabineros and Public Ministry officials, there were evident violations of rights and criminalization of Mapuche families, along with a manipulative communication effort to present the procedure as a ‘police success.’

In a statement, they indicated that among those affected were a couple of elderly individuals who only speak Mapudungun—one terminally ill with liver damage, the other suffering from senile dementia—along with a pregnant woman, a housewife, and her four-year-old son.

The community went further, suggesting a possible manipulation of evidence: the marijuana displayed in the media may not have been seized within Temucuicui, but rather correspond to a separate operation conducted in the urban area of Ercilla.

In their statement, they emphasized that they will not accept «the exploitation of our children’s and vulnerable people’s situations for false communication campaigns by the police institutions, claiming success through the mixing of two distinct operations.»

Furthermore, of the five individuals arrested, only one remains in preventive detention; the other four received less severe precautionary measures.

Thus, while the government attempted to establish the narrative of a successful operation in La Araucanía, the Temucuicui community accused Kast’s administration of exposing children, the elderly, and pregnant women to bolster the story of purported territorial control. Amid the tension, the tweet that was published and then deleted by the ministry led by Steinert ignited a controversy that the Comptroller will have to address.

La entrada «Safety Is No Joke»: Socialist Party Targets Steinert and Will Report Deleted Tweet on Temucuicui to the Comptroller se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.