With their health deteriorating and without medical supervision the Mapuche political prisoners continue their hunger strike

Public statement - Wallmapuche: Ercilla, 10th August 2010

The Parliament of autonomous communities of Malleco, along with the Rankilko Mapuche Community, before the local, national and international community expresses and denounces the following:

That the Chilean Military Police, from the moment the 10 Mapuche political prisoners began their hunger strike in Angol Prison, began using heavy repression, harassment and threats against our brothers, carrying out endless raids on the cells where they are being held, leaving them totally isolated and without the delivery of any humanitarian help and not informing the communities and their families of their actual state of health. Also forbidding the entry of any medical professional in order to carry out health checks.

Traditional Mapuche leaders from every community have managed to bring in scales with which our brothers have been able to start weighing themselves and to discover the amount of body weight which they have lost from the moment they started the hunger strike on 26th July 2010. Up until now, this weight loss varies from between 7 and 10 kilos.

Serious and intense headaches, stomach and kidney pain, cramp in the legs and ribs, feelings of weakness, dizziness, disorientation, vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, shivers, heart problems, feelings of faintness and momentary loss of vision are amongst the serious symptoms which our brothers are presenting with and which we can corroborate having visited them on a daily basis.

Whilst being preoccupied with all our brothers on strike, we are most seriously concerned with the health of brothers Felipe Huenchullan and Camilo Toris Quiñinao, because at the start of their hunger strike and as a result of the serious torture which they were subjected to when they were first arrested, they have not been able to recover. Consequently they began the hunger strike already below their normal weight, so now day after day their health is deteriorating.

All the Mapuche communities which make up the Parliament of the Malleco Autonomous Communities along with the Rankilko Mapuche Community, demand that the justice authorities drop their attitude of forgetting, isolating and harassing our brothers on hunger strike. Given the complex situation of those Mapuche on hunger strike it is urgent that the National Police immediately authorise the entry of a medical professional, in order to check their actual state of health. If this is not done the National Police are further wounding the rights of those on strike.

Finally we make a loud call to the Mapuche communities, social organisations and all those who identify with the fight of the Mapuche people. Come and attend on Monday 16th August a march of women in the city of Angol, called by the Mapuche communities and families of the Mapuche political prisoners in Angol Prison.

Freedom for Mapuche Political Prisoners!


Temucuicui Autonomous Community


Translated by Lucy Harding