SANTIAGO, Aug 16 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — The leader of the Arauco Malleco Coordinating Committee (CAM), Hector Llaitul, is in critical condition on Thursday after more than 70 days of hunger strike in the Chilean prison of Concepcion, his son said.
Llaitul, 56, began the fast on June 3 to demand the annulment of his trial, the release of Mapuche prisoners, and dignified prison conditions for the members of indigenous communities.
The CAM leader was sentenced on May 7 to 23 years in prison: 15 years for incitement and apology for violence, five years for theft of wood, and three years for assaulting authorities.
The defense team rejected the application in terms of democracy of the State Internal Security Law to a leader of the Mapuche nation and the use of protected witnesses to obtain a long sentence, which it considered unjust.
Mapuche is the largest indigenous group in Chile With more than one million inhabitants. It is in a historical conflict with the state over the dispossession of their ancestral lands.
Acts of violence, in which Indigenous people, settlers, and police officers were killed and land and agricultural machinery were burned, have taken place in the so-called South Macrozone in the last few years.
During a recent visit to Chile, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Margaret Satterthwaite expressed the need to lift the state of emergency in the Araucania and Biobio regions. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
