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The Sexual Crimes Brigade of the Chilean Investigative Police arrested brothers Miguel and Reinaldo Cortés Arancibia, accused of brutally attacking Carolina Torres Urbina, a 24-year-old lesbian. They had been wanted since February 15th . Both have prior criminal records for robbery.

In the early hours of February 14, Carolina was walking down the street with her girlfriend when two men struck her on the head with a stick , causing a skull fracture. The attack occurred near a pub in the Pudahuel district.

That night, the young woman had been watching a soccer game with her partner. According to the victim's family, who spoke to Presentes, they were walking home, holding hands, when they encountered two men. One of them confronted her, saying, "I finally found you, faggot," recounted Marianela Urbina, the victim's mother. "When he said that, he attacked her, hitting her with a stick. The other one finished her off by kicking her in the back," Urbina explained.

[READ ALSO: Chile accumulates a record number of violence against LGBT people in the last year]

Due to the severity of her condition, Carolina remained hospitalized for several days in intensive care due to internal bleeding at the Public Assistance Emergency Hospital – known as Posta Central.

15 hate attacks so far in 2019

In a statement, Oscar Rementería, spokesperson for the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), celebrated the arrest of the attackers, saying, “This will undoubtedly alleviate some of the harm done to Carolina and her family and brings us closer to achieving justice.” He added, “We expect the same diligence in addressing all abuses motivated by discrimination, because unfortunately, in most cases of abuse against LGBTI people, which totaled 3,137 between 2002 and 2018, there was almost never any swift action. Last year there were three homophobic/transphobic murders, and so far in 2019 we have already seen 15 hate attacks.”

[READ ALSO: 2018: Impunity in attacks against the LGBTI community in Chile]

The organization is requesting that the aggravating circumstance stipulated in the Zamudio Law be applied in Carolina's case, "which doesn't seem likely, as this law has shortcomings. One of them is that it forces the victim to prove that she was discriminated against, when it should be the aggressors who should have to prove that they did not discriminate. It is for this reason that we have submitted a bill to the Government today to reform the law," they explained.

For MOVILH, the attack on Carolina is lesbophobic in nature, since the young woman was beaten because of her gender expression or the expression of her sexual orientation. “In other words, according to her family, she was previously harassed by the attackers because of the way she dresses, walks, and expresses herself, which, in the eyes of the attackers, deserve some punishment or reproach for not corresponding to their vision of femininity,” they stated.

“We hope the courts take this situation into serious consideration, as we know that perpetrators often defend themselves against these abuses by claiming they have LGBTQ+ friends or family members, or that they did not attack the victim's LGBTQ+ companion. However, none of these claims guarantees greater or lesser innocence, as discrimination operates in other ways. In fact, being LGBTQ+ is no guarantee of not being homophobic, lesbophobic, or transphobic,” Rementería concluded.