PUBLIC STATEMENT NR. 2 OF LEONARDO QUIJÓN PEREIRA, MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONER FROM THE PRISON OF ANGOL - CHILE / 28.11.2012

Leonardo Quijón Pereira, Mapuche political prisoner in the jail of Angol.

I, Leonardo Quijón Pereira, Mapuche political prisoner of the Community Chequenco want to inform the national and international community the following:

Already tired of the political harassment of the Chilean government and of the prosecutors like Luis Chamorro, who has dedicated himself to persecute me, torture me and keep me in prison taking away of me the innocence of a child.  
The year 2009 where I remained eight months in prison away from my loved ones.  
Not content with that this year I again get involved in these acts that I have never taken part in where again I am moved away from my family and my wife who is pregnant.
 
For that reason, I decided to make this strike until the last consequences because this is no life for me. 
I would prefer to be dead in these conditions.  

THAT'S WHY I DEMAND IMMEDIATE FREEDOM BECAUSE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT LINKS ME WITH THE ACTS OF WHICH I AM ACCUSED.
 
I'm a victim of political persecution since age 14.
 
Lastly I am very sorry that the Gallardo family has lend itself for this injustice and has not wanted to clarify the death of the parcel holder Hector Gallardo. I tell them that my conscience and my hands are clean and thus I will demonstrate it.

STOP THE POLITICAL PERSECUTION, HARASSMENT AND SETUPS OF THE CHILEAN STATE AGAINST THE SOCIAL STRUGGLES OF THE MAPUCHE PEOPLE!

FREEDOM TO ALL MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONERS!

Leonardo Quijón Pereira from the prison of Angol, November 28, 2012

For more information contact me directly at Angol prison or my sister Cristina Quijón

Mapuche community members continue mobilized in Angol prison for "fair" processes

Source: http://radio.uchile.cl/noticias/181249/
By: Paula Correa
Wednesday November 28, 2012

This is the case of Leonardo Quijón and other young leaders who accuse persecution by the Justice. In addition, iconic leaders like Héctor Llaitul and Ramón Llanquileo who continue on a hunger strike, reported a number of irregularities, including that the leader of the CAM was denied permission to present his book in the detention center.

On Tuesday it was announced that the Mapuche community member Leonardo Quijón, would initiate a hunger strike inside the jail of Angol to demand his immediate release, adding to the pressure measurement already held two leaders of the Coordinating body of Arauco Malleco (CAM) inside the prison.

While the decision is being evaluated, Quijón the case of is complex, because the young man is in custody under the Anti-Terrorism Act for the murder of parcel holder Hector Gallardo, which occurred this past September.

However, his lawyer, Lorenzo Morales, said that the accusation is false, since witnesses are implicating a long-haired youth when Leonardo had cut his hair four days earlier. He also indicated that Quijón was at least three kilometers away from the area of the crime.

In that sense, Morales, questioned the motives of the prosecutor: "They accused the usual suspects, the police accused a certain circle, and in this case, they were wrong. He has been charged with several offenses previously and has been acquitted on all (...) he had changed his community, even, he was outside of what is called the Red Zone," he explained. 

Despite his little more than 20 years, Leonardo Quijón is a renowned Mapuche leader, who has faced Justice from age 14, resulting always free. Currently, the youth has over 180 buckshot in one leg, owing to the raids and clashes which has witnessed.

For the president of the NGO Liberar, Fernando Lira, in such cases "preventive detention is being used to keep the people controlled in jail," explaining that "we often find cases where people are held in pretrial detention and then in the trials they get cleared of all charges."

"There is a list of young men who, at this time, are persecuted. Charges are being generated by any means to keep them away from their communities, of the groups that are in land recovery," said Lira.

Moreover, the historical leaders of the CAM, Héctor Llaitul and Ramón Llanquileo already spent more than 15 days on hunger strike, demanding justice, for they say that they have been tried more than once for the same reasons, violating legal principles, besides being denied prison benefits.

In this framework, the Gendarmes rejected that Llaitul participate in the presentation of his book "Weichan, talks with a weychafe in political prison," scheduled for Saturday, December 1.

According to Pamela Pessoa, partner of the community member, this action "represents a new political persecution against Héctor Llaitul, who not only was persecuted when he was free, but is still being persecuted while in prison," she said.

Previously to Llaitul was also denied the opportunity to attend the first presentation of the text, in Santiago. This measure has generated concern from a number of organizations for the defense of human rights and indigenous peoples, as it would violate their right to freedom of expression.

Nevertheless, said Pamela Pessoa, anyhow, they are evaluating to make the presentation outside the prison compound of Angol.  

LEONARDO QUIJÓN, MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONER, STARTS NEW HUNGER STRIKE, CHILE, 27-11-2012

FIRST PUBLIC STATEMENT LEONARDO QUIJÓN 

I, Leonardo Quijón Pereira, Mapuche political prisoner of the Community Chequenco, want to inform the national and international community the following:

- That from today Tuesday November 27, 2012 at 0:00 Hrs I start for 20 days a liquid hunger strike at first and then I will continue with a dry strike.
- That despite my innocence I must remain again deprived of my liberty in degrading conditions. 
- I demand that I be granted immediately my freedom under precautionary measures.
- I demand that the people who have accused me of being a participant in the death of Mr. Hector Gallardo admit and say that their statements were wrong and that I am innocent.
- That in case of not reaching a solution I will start on December 17, 2012 with a dry strike.  

STOP THE POLITICAL PERSECUTION, HARASSMENT AND SETUPS OF THE CHILEAN STATE AGAINST THE SOCIAL STRUGGLES OF THE MAPUCHE PEOPLE!

FREEDOM TO ALL MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONERS!

Leonardo Quijón Pereira from the prison of Angol, November 27, 2012
For more information contact me directly at Angol prison or my sister Cristina Quijón 

Today LEONARDO QUIJÓN PEREIRA declares himself to be on hunger strike:  

THE HELL OF A YOUNG MAPUCHE COMMUNITY MEMBER  
(Interview with Leo) 

He exposes his life so that justice can be done to him. He already was on a hunger strike together with four other Mapuche community members in order to have themselves moved to a prison that was closer to the residence of their families. They succeeded, but with serious consequences for Leonardo, who suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest and had to be treated at the Hospital of Temuco.

After turning himself in to justice to prove his innocence in the case of which he is currently imputed and after 3 months of investigation, neither he nor his witnesses have ever been taken to a hearing.

Today, November 27, 2012, Leonardo Eusebio Quijón Pereira, Mapuche community member, 20, incarcerated in the prison of Angol, started on a hunger strike asking to be granted release on precautionary measures and that the family of parcel holder Hector Gallardo of the sector of Chequenco, killed on September 1st of this year in an assault by three hooded men, tell the truth and remove the charges incriminating him as the murderer. The brother of the parcel holder says having recognized them even though they were hooded.

Leonardo has been through hell since he was shot by police on 20 October 2009, when according to his statements "he was hunting rabbits with two more friends" near Mapuche Community Wente Winkul Mapu, Pidima, Chequenco reduction, commune of Ercilla, IX Region of the Araucanía, where he lives. 
Today, when the Gendarmes of the Penitentiary of Angol open the bars, he will deliver them a statement declaring his hunger strike and his request, in the case of not being accepted within 20 days, he will reaffirm it by passing on to a dry hunger strike.

Leonardo's case, handled by the lawyer Lorenzo Morales, transcended to the national and international media,  because after the attack he received and for fear of reprisals his mother decided to move him to Santiago to receive specialized medical care at the Institute of Traumatology. Given the severity of his injuries, he was transferred two days later to the Hospital of the Catholic University with emergency treatment. There, one of the minor's physicians told reporters confirming the seriousness of his condition, and reporting that he was connected to mechanical ventilation in the Critical Patient Unit.

They arrest him without having recovered and for 2 years the community member is imprisoned in a juvenile prison in Chol-Chol, accused by the chief prosecutor of the Public Ministry of Angol, Luis Chamorro, for four crimes: armed robbery, repeated arson, illegal possession firearm and attempted murder.

The young man, then 17 years old, was acquitted on June 24, 2010, by the Oral Criminal Court of Angol of all charges against him. The prosecutor Chamorro asked a sentence of 10 years, maximum penalty that can be applied to a minor, but failed at not being able to prove the involvement of Leonardo in the events.

For Leonardo not all ends here. Military justice joined the persecution by the Prosecutor of Angol-on July 19, 2010 - asking the Court of Appeals of Temuco to overturn the trial that acquitted the teenager and decided to have him stand trial again 10 days after having turned 18.

However on September 21, 2010, the Oral Trial Court of Angol acquitted the young community member for the second time, on all counts.

"I am innocent."   

Today, Leonardo is part of the group of Mapuche political prisoners to whom they have applied the anti-terrorism law No. 18,314, enacted during the Pinochet dictatorship, legal body never repealed by any of the democratic governments that have preceded it.

In an interview conducted a few days ago, the young community member said that "the treatment towards us is unworthy, I surrendered voluntarily to the Investigative Police of Angol, because I am innocent of the murder of which I am accused. At the moment I have never been taken to a hearing, nor have my witnesses declared. Again it is the prosecutor Luis Chamorro who accuses me and I think that having me imprisoned for a crime that I did not commit is a personal revenge of him because I was acquitted in two previous trials."

He adds that "they have always been after me, during the time I was free they raided my house, took me prisoner and after 2 days I was send away. In fact, a week before the murder of the parcel holder they had caught me and I spent a night at the PDI".

Leonardo is small, no more than 1.50 meters, he is very thin due to the earlier hunger strike, in which he tells having lost 10 kilos, he currently weighs 53 kg., when his normal weight should be 60 kg.

He looks you in the face when he speaks and even if it sounds little objective, for this journalist it is almost impossible to think that he is capable of committing murder. He says that "I've been suffering many times with depression, because being in jail is the worst thing that can happen to you and even more when I am innocent", and abounds "a week ago I went back into depression and all I wanted was to die." But when he looks at his partner who is five months pregnant, he says that he "could not do it for her and my baby. I need to get out of here to work and give them what they deserve."   

He emphasizes that "I have never received the medical attention I need. I have difficulties to get around, a lot of pain and discomfort in the left leg (which had the wound made ​​by a shotgun and over 130 buckshot embedded in it), it is terrible. The buckshot sting me, the leg wound is sweating all the time, I have wet socks all the time and I can not walk very long. When I stretch the rest of my remaining tendon in the leg, there starts a sharp pain in the sole of the foot." 

"Also, the doctors who saw me in Santiago told me that I have a bad spot in the heart, but the Hospital of Temuco and representatives of the Red Cross say I'm fine. But, I have chest pain every day and often my heartbeat accelerates.My view clouds and the doctors say it's nerves. The headaches do not leave me alone, he says, and I no longer know what to do. "

At a time when Justice absolves the priest "Tato" accused of child abuse two weeks before serving his sentence and confirmed a reduction of the sentence of Spiniak tried as a pederast, Leonardo is wondering what Justice will decide to do in his case, when those who shot the parcel holder Hector Gallardo were three hooded men and he, to prove his innocence, voluntarily surrendered to the PDI of Angol a week after the incident.

For more information:

Journalist Andrea Figueroa
Phone: 09.2758263 (Chile)

November 27, 2012

NEW HUNGER STRIKE FOR JUSTICE IS BORN FROM WITHIN THE MAPUCHE TERRITORY

Two renowned Mapuche leaders belonging to the Coordinating body of Arauco-Malleco carry since 10 days a new liquid hunger strike which they will maintain until the final consequences.
Not the first hunger strike of these great leaders of the Mapuche movement of national liberation, even with their health deteriorated due to previous strikes and the costs that they may have to face in this new battle for justice, they make us all join the concern and denunciation, and that brings us back to our fighting positions. We understand that for many people this new hunger strike sounds like counterproductive because recently we were on tenterhooks for other hunger strikes, but this fight is like that, without rest breaks for neither rests the enemy, let alone holding back for antipathies or selfishness.

"FIGHT IS FIGHT AND THE REST TO ONE SIDE"

Our people continue day and night resisting the brutal repression of the state, we can not hold back of all the processes that are carried out by different Mapuche communities for their territory, where the prison is a high cost and from which one continues to struggle, dignified attitude and exemplary of the Mapuche nation for the whole world.
I invite you to disseminate, to join and especially to address the issue of human rights violations in Mapuche territory and the fights that come out of the prison to denounce these outrages, the Weichafe that fight outside do not stop fight inside the prison. 

Public Statement No. 2
Hunger Strike of the Mapuche political prisoners
We communicate to the Mapuche Nation and the general public the following:

That the Mapuche Political Prisoners of the CAM, Coordinating body of Arauco Malleco, reaffirm their commitment to a liquid hunger strike, begun last Wednesday November 14, and to take it to its logical conclusion.

That this new mobilization intends to denounce the following:

- Our pu peñi have been prosecuted and convicted unfairly, through the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Act, using "secret witnesses", and other tricks, to get them imprisoned for 8 and 15 years respectively.

- That they were doubly judged by two courts, one civilian and one military, violating the legal principle of "Non bis in idem". Being sentenced to three and four years by the Civil Court when we had already been acquitted for the same offense (Fiscal Elgueta) by the Military Court.

Given the above we restate the demands of the Mapuche Political Prisoners of the CAM on hunger strike, these are:
* Freedom for all the Mapuche political prisoners in Chile.
* Repairs to transgression of "NOS BIS IN IDEM", allowing the reduction of our convictions of 8-4 years (Llanquileo and Huillical) and 15-11 years (Llaitul).
* Right to Prison Benefits, in the case of Ramon Llanquileo, that recognize the quality of political prisoner and Mapuche community member.
* Recognition of the quality of Mapuche political prisoners for all, that translate into decent conditions, segregated confinement, the right to quality and timely health care, adequate space to practice our culture and religion.  

Adding two points;

* An end to the constant raids to the cells where they are serving sentences. Stop this harassment and the tentative setups that have been shaped primarily by irresponsible insinuations by Chilean authorities and the by Gendarmerie of Chile acting as accomplices. 
* That the almost four years spent by Héctor Llaitul in preventive detention, for various cases of which he has been acquitted, be counted as time served for his current condemnation.

Also we inform you that:

With 10 days of hunger strike already there are showing up the first visible effects: dizziness, dehydration and cramping, along with a considerable loss of weight, about 7 kg on average.

Also, in order to make an assessment of the real state of health of Héctor Llaitul, today he will be transferred to the hospital in Angol, where from 09:00 in the morning he will undergo tests to his stomach, an endoscopy and an abdominal echo. We must remember and clarify that the health of peñi Héctor Llaitul is very delicate, just a few months ago, he had to undergo emergency surgery, resulting in the removal of the gallbladder, because of stones, some tests to the kidneys were pending, which have not yet been made​​.

We ask that, given this new mobilization by our peñi, you remain vigilant, denouncing the irregularities raised here and spreading and supporting the demands that are requested today.

FREEDOM TO ALL  

MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONERS!
AN END TO THE REPRESSION OF 

THE COMMUNITIES IN CONFLICT!
TERRITORY AND AUTONOMY! 

WEWAIÑ!

 
Support Networks Mapuche Political Prisoners of the CAM, Héctor Llaitul Carrillanca and Ramon Llanquileo Pilquiman on Hunger Strike.