 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thousands of Chileans gathered around the dignity square in the capital city, Santiago, on Sunday, October 18th to mark one year of the country's popular uprising. The demonstrations took place despite massive deployment of the Chilean police who are called the Carabineros. 40,000 Carabineros were deployed across several areas of Santiago. The police tried to disperse the demonstrators with water cannons and tear gas. Reporters on the ground also said that unidentified persons were present in the crowd who made use of chemical irritants. Sunday's demonstrations were organized just a few days ahead of the upcoming constitutional referendum. On October 25th, Chile will be voting whether or not they want a change in the current constitution. The current constitution called the Magna Carta was written and imposed during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Chilean social movements believe that this constitution has created the foundation for the rampant inequality and neoliberal economic system in the country. These inequalities have worsened under the current regime of Chilean President Sebastián Pinerá. The demand for a new constitution emerged from the popular struggle that began a year ago. The uprising was sparked by a high school students protest against the increase in the cost of public transportation services in the capital. On October 11th, high school students began refusing to buy metro tickets en masse and jumped the turnstiles to protest the hike. The innovative resistance led by the Chilean youth served as a catalyst for awakening the long-standing discontent in the country. Since October 18th of last year, these protests have transformed into a demonstration against the austerity and anti-people policies introduced by Pinochet and intensified by Pinerá. The levels of repression against protesters during the uprising have been unprecedented. At least 30 people were killed in the protests last year. The Chilean state violated all norms established by international human rights organizations in repressing the social struggle. Thousands of cases of illegal detentions, torture, abuse, rapes, sexual attacks, violation of the right to information and dissemination, political persecution, criminalization of social protests, militarization of public spaces, among other human rights violations, were registered in the country and have been condemned nationally and internationally. The disproportionate violent response of security forces to protesters under the command of Pinerá has led many sectors of Chilean society to demand Pinerá's resignation. A legal complaint against Pinerá as a perpetrator of the crime against humanity was also filed in the court in Santiago. These sustained demonstrations and strikes led to the Chilean government agreeing to hold this referendum. The upcoming referendum was originally scheduled for April 26th, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It will ask Chileans two questions, whether they want a new constitution or not, and if they do, what type of body should strike it? A mixed constitutional convention or a constitutional convention? The mixed constitutional convention will have a 50% representation of congress members and 50% of elected members for this purpose. The constitutional convention will have a 100% representation of members elected by citizens for this work. The current agreement does not guarantee the creation of a constitutional assembly and the mechanisms of plurinational participation and gender parity that the social movements had been demanding. Left parties and social movements of Chile have been campaigning to urge people to vote for a new Magna Carta and a constitutional convention. However, everyone's participation is also not guaranteed in this referendum. On August 25th, President Pinerá promulgated the safe referendum law that gives special powers to the electoral service, servil and short, to take necessary sanitary and security measures for holding safe elections. The law allows the servil to decide whether or not to allow people infected with coronavirus to vote. Several officials of Pinerá's administration have expressed themselves against the presence of COVID-19 patients during the voting process. However, Chileans editors from the Party for Democracy and from the Christian Democratic Party expressed concern that the increasing rate of contagion could affect the voter turnout and generate doubts regarding the legitimacy of the electoral process. On September 1st, the presenter reformed a bill that seeks to modify the safe referendum law so that the people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are allowed to vote in the constitutional plebiscite. With the reform, the senators demanded that the servil along with the Health Ministry devise alternative ways of voting and establish the best mechanism for the infected or suspicious patients to exercise their right to vote. According to various surveys conducted during the month of August, more than 70% of the citizens have said that they will go to the polls despite the pandemic.