Catalogue Number
NMLH.1992.409.12.153
Object Name
Poster
Title
Deport the Chilean Ambassador
People
Sheila Cassidy; Roberto Kozak
Events
Chilean Coup
Date
Around 1976
Description
Poster, "Deport the Chilean Ambassador"
White poster with a graphic image of a person tied down on the frame of a bunkbed. A box a line are shown nearby and labelled "electric cable". The image is a depiction of torture of political prisoners in Chile. Beneath the title reads "He called Sheila Cassidy a liar and a coward. This is what his government did to her and is still doing to thousands of others". The poster was produced by the Chile Solidarity Campaign.
Sheila Cassidy was a English doctor, who trained in Sydney. She began to practice medicine in Chile during the Allende regime and was caught up in the violence of the Chilean Coup and following regime through her medical work. She gave medical care to a political opponent of Pinochet, Nelson Gutierrez, who was being sought by the police. Following this, she was arrested by the DINA (the Chilean Secret Police) in November 1975. She was kept in custody without trial, and tortured to force her to disclose information about Gutierrez and other political opponents. She was release late in 1975 and returned to the UK with the assistance of the British Government and Humanitarian Roberto Kozak, where she raised awareness of the human rights abuses being undertaken in Chile by sharing her story of imprisonment and torture.
Roberto Kozak was an Argentinan living and working in Chile during the Pinochet coup and subsequent regime. He used his position at a small migration office to rescue people from prisons and death squads under the Pinochet regime, and was provided the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile's highest civilian honour available for non-Chileans.
