Mistreatment of family of Mapuche political prisoners in jail Temucu

PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM THE JAIL OF TEMUCO, September 10, 2012.

To the national and international public opinion, from the Center for Prison Enforcement Temuco, as Mapuche Political Prisoners, we report that:
 
At the date of September 8, 2012, being the day of visits, where we receive our grandmothers, mothers, wives, children, friends, we publicly denounce the searches which humiliating our loved ones have received upon entering to the prison of Temuco. In the case of the women who have had to put aside their own modesty to undergo such a humiliating situation. They have been treated like real criminals.

We also denounce that despite numerous agreements that have been made with the police of Chile regarding the entry of certain foods, which have been part of our ancestral diet, like toasted flour, muday, mote, etc.. were not allowed to bring these Our families into the jail, greatly harming our state of health, due to the dietary changes that are imposed on us here.

Finally, we categorically DENOUNCE the discrimination that have suffered our mothers at entering with their traditional dress into the jail in Temuco, this situation being questioned by the police, who performed the humiliating searches. Backing up this discrimination was the Deputy officer, who has given no more background than his first name, Luna, who in a threatening manner informed the families that their entry into the jail depended on him, and so therefore, admission of our mothers in their traditional clothes was still in question. 
We hereby inform and denounce the appalling conditions to which we have been subjected by the Chilean State, imprisoning us, torturing us, persecuting us, for the fact of defending our ancestral territory, which they have been destroying every day, by their lust for power. Every person belonging to a People is worthy of their culture, their clothing, their food, their family, no one should deprive us of this.
  
FOR THE FREEDOM OF OUR PEOPLE

M A R I CH I W E W

Leonardo Quijón

Fernando Millacheo

Luis Marileo

Guido Bahamondes

Ernesto Chachallao