Mapuche Supporters Protest in Belgium for Political Prisoners in Chile
By Radhika Sanghani - Friday, 13 August 2010
Around 40 Chileans and Europeans protestors Wednesday occupied Chile’s Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, in solidarity with the Mapuche political prisoners on hunger strikes throughout jails in Chile.
They blocked the embassy’s access to show solidarity with the prisoners, to commemorate Global Action Day, and to mark the anniversary of Jaime Mendoza Collio, a Mapuche activist who was shot by Chilean police Aug. 12, 2009.
“The goal is to break the muted media circle around the strike and the situation of the political prisoners, expressing solidarity with the Mapuche cause,” a spokesperson for the protestors, Pavel Pavelic, told Chilean radio station Radio Cooperativa.
Pavelic said he asked for an interview with Chilean Ambassador to Belgium Carlos Appelgren, who declined to acknowledge the protesters, who even chained themselves to the embassy.
In Chile on Tuesday several Mapuche communities appealed to the human rights commission of the Chamber of Deputies regarding enforcement, police intelligence and changing the current anti-terrorism law – created during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
The commission members agreed to visit the five prisons where the hunger strikes have taken place for the last month, to speak to the strikers and to assess the situation. However, no members of the governing center-right Alianza coalition were present at the meeting.
Dep. Hugo Gutierrez, the acting president of the committee and a member of the Communist Party, also agreed to request a hearing with the head of District Attorney’s Office, Sabas Chahuan, regarding accusations by protected witnesses who alleged that the office offered to pay them to testify against Mapuche villagers.
The deputies also plan to modify the anti-terrorism law: to remove certain criminal offenses and to enforce the protection of property, they said.
The prisoners are on a liquids-only hunger strike in part to protest the anti-terrorism law, which they say is often inappropriately used against them, as well as the Chilean government’s denying them land that they claim as rightfully their own.
The prisoners’ families and supporters began marches in Santiago and other cities on Aug. 2 to draw more media coverage to the cause and to urge the government to take notice of the strike (ST, Aug. 4).
The situation is becoming more urgent, as the prisoners say they are close to beginning a total hunger strike. They also allege abuse and racism against Mapuches in the prisons.
José Aylwin, president of the human rights group Observatorio Ciudadano, confirmed bruises on prisoners attending a trial, while Juana Reiman, spokesperson for prisoners in Concepción, warned police officers against harassment and families’ difficulties in finding traditional medicine and trustworthy doctors.
Activists also reported that in the Angol jail prisoners are often left completely isolated when officers go on raids.
“We haven’t killed anyone, we haven’t been found with weapons, which some prosecutors accuse us of,” said Eric Millán, spokesperson for the prisoners in Temuco.
“This state judges Mapuche for being Mapuche, for thinking differently and so they imprison us. Our existence is not convenient for the government, because to them, we are a nuisance.”
Sources: Universidad de Chile Radio, Radio Biko-Bio, La Tercera
By Radhika Sanghani (
\n editor@santiagtimes.cl
)
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Source: The Santiago Times