Free and drop all charges on those persecuted for fighting!
On December 5th 2019, relatives of the political prisoners of Chile made a press conference to denounce the repression, imprisonment and persecution by the Piñera government, the police and the entire Pinochetista regime against the workers and the youth who rose up. Since the beginning of the Chilean revolution on October 18th the police have arrested more than 30,102 protestors, of which 20,217 were charged and 1,957 are kept in pre-emptive prison as political prisoners.
We hereby reproduce this press conference made by the relatives of the political prisoners, which together with other organizations, have set up the “Coordination organ for the freedom of the political prisoners, October 18th, as well as several testimonies that these relatives wanted to share through the International Network for the Liberation of the Political Prisoners at the entrance of the jail “Santiago 1”, denouncing repression, frame-ups, fake prosecutions and persecution to the youth for the sole “crime” of fighting for a decent life.
Interview with the parents of Jesus Zenteno, Chilean university student imprisoned for fighting under bogus charges and planted evidence
“The arrest was totally unfair. They left him all night long in a prison cell, with no food or anything”
“Hello, good afternoon. My name is Christian Zenteno. I am from the city of Arica and I come here, to Santiago of Chile, to fight for my son, who is unfairly imprisoned, until he is convicted, in a very illegal way I would say. I think the police is acting in a very underhanded way. There are infiltrated that dedicate themselves to follow the ones demonstrating. Maybe people are marching and they are behind them, following to get evidence. For example, there are some cases that the police or the infiltrated obtain evidence in a very dirty way, as for example, follow a person, encourage it to do outrages, arson attacks, looting… They encourage them and later they record them. There’s another one that is recording…”
“They, the infiltrated police, are co-authors”
“So they encourage and there’s another one recording. I think that’s something very dirty… very dirty… because they are playing with years of freedom of children, youth, that are only demanding justice. My son is a university student. He studies music. His records are clean. He is a peaceful noble person.”
“He is even Vegan. He is a beautiful boy.”
“As many others, he is illegally imprisoned… with a frame-up and a way of catching him that is very dirty, because they are encouraged and then there’s another one recording.”
“They are co-authors. The infiltrated police are co-authors because in every action there is, they are involved as well.”
“The idea is to frame them”
“If you are police, you have to safeguard the integrity of the people. If you see somebody doing something bad, if there is nothing else to do, I don’t know, take him, hit him, call another policeman, get him out of there, but don’t load up on him any more burden. It is a frame-up what they say about my son having Molotov cocktails in his backpack. My son never had Molotov cocktails. The arrest was totally unfair. They left him all night long in a prison cell with no food or anything. The following day he was moved here, to the courthouse. And here he was given pre-emptive prison for 3 months… 3 months for a boy who is a student, who has his whole life ahead! This cannot be so unfair! This makes me real sad.”
“The idea is also, I think, that first they have nothing so they have to be treated in a soft way. And secondly, the police must pay for this. The way they are doing it, police is to blame, and they have to pay.”
Interview to the relatives of Mauricio Cheuque, Mapuche imprisoned in the population (neighbourhood) La Victoria, arrested by the police with planted evidence
“He was trampled on, he was tortured… He is a worker…
Piñera and the police are destroying our lives.”
“Mauricio was arrested with a frame-up on November 14th. He went to see his mother in the Population (nighbourhood) La Victoria, where there was a demonstration for Camilo Catrillanca. It turned out that at that time there was an assault against the precinct of La Victoria. The police came out to hunt. This is the word they are using. My husband happened to be there and he couldn’t run. He was trampled on. He was tortured. And they planted a Molotov cocktail on him. As they saw his name was Mauricio Cheuque, with “Cheuque” as his last name, the police said “ahh, so you are Mapuche? Ok, we have a little present for you for setting our house in the woods on fire” and they planted him a Molotov cocktail. Then he went to control at the next day of November 14th. He was tested for corrosives and the result was negative. He is a worker. This destroyed our lives. We have 4 daughters, which were left psychologically and economically in a bad situation. He is imprisoned under the State Security Act. That gives him many years, and for nothing. Piñera and the police are ruining our lives. It is good for this to be known. I also want to thank the assembly of La Victoria that have been nice, I want to thank the youth and all the population of La Victoria. Take care, because this can happen to anyone. All this because he is Mapuche. It just happened that he is Mapuche. Help me please, because we need to save him from this. Thank you.”
Interview to Carlos, brother in law of Mauricio Gomez Herrera, arrested within the framework of the revolution that started on October 18
“We have to demand the freedom of our detained. They are political prisoners… and we will fight for them to come out free”
“Good morning comrades. My name is Carlos. I am relative of Mauricio Gómez Herrera, arrested in the framework of the protests against the Chilean economic model, for this struggle that we are fighting for the structural changes that this country requires, and not only this country, in the face of the collapse that the neoliberal model they have built is leading the society to the last 30-40 years, which has been installed on fire and blood throughout Latin America, of which we all more or less know and have a background.
In the current context of my relative, of my detained brother-in-law, he is imprisoned in module 14 together with several prisoners from the protest. They are receiving harassment by the gendarmerie. They are given public defense lawyers that often leave a Lot to be desired. There is also a rather ugly phenomenon around those arrested for the protest, since there are lawyers who settle outside the court to talk to relatives and, taking advantage of the despair in which these relatives fall, they are charged money by telling them and promising that they are going to take out and release their relatives, which is an issue they do not achieve, because the state is determined to leave detainees arrested in the context of the protest, regardless of the evidence. Many of these comrades have been loaded with incendiary elements and devices.
And that is added to this transversal agreement in the political benches and that has been reflected both in the Senate and in the congress in the approval of various law procedures, or villa passing to laws, to further repress social protest. To further criminalize the mobilizations that the whole Chilean society is doing at the moment. The bill that punishes the hood and also the barricades, which have been one of the most used elements throughout society, has just been unanimously approved. It is a transversal element to the protest. And in that sense we believe that this political agreement that exists to stop the mobilizations only accounts for the class commitment they have, the bourgeoisie, by order, to maintain this society of inequalities. Against that we can not shut up. We have to demand the freedom of our detainees. They are political prisoners, they are prisoners in the framework of a political protest and we will fight for them to go free. May they go free.”
Interview with Samuel Parra Silva's mother; he was arrested in the context of the revolution that began on October 18
“Chile woke up. Of course, because we don't want them to take advantage of us, the working class, the hard working class of our country”
“I want to take advantage of this instance to denounce all this situation that is happening in our country, in Chile. Really, everything that is happening is infortunate, because unfair things are happening... a lot of injustice with many people who are innocent, with many people who are really valuable, courageous people from here, from my country. One of them is my son, Samuel Parra Silva, who was arrested at one of the demonstrations. I am very hurt because in fact I have already visited several offices and I have asked for help and they have not given it to me. I want to appeal because my son is a good citizen, like me, like his father.
I am his mother. Imagine how I am as a mother who sees her son locked in a place where we never imagined that we could be. It is a cause that I want to convey through this medium, of how in my country it happens to repeat the story that happened 45 years ago. A story that really shouldn't be happening here. A story that should not be repeated. How many mothers cried in those years and are still crying to this day ... Mothers who are alone and waiting to see if their children appear, those children that were lost 45 years ago. Imagine now again in our country this story is repeated again. And now I'm going to cry? Is this generation going to cry for their children now? For good children, children who work, children who study, courageous children, children who are a good generation?
And of course, as the phrase goes, “Chile woke up”. Of course, because we don't want them to take advantage of us, the working class, the hard working class of our country. So I want to use this instance and thanks for walking here. Thanks to this group that is here, because I needed an instance like this to say that my son, who is in here, in this place (Jail Santiago 1, N. of T.), is innocent. Apart from him there are many more young... young professionals... young people who wanted to go to demonstrate, because we have the right to claim, but not (with this outcome), that they have been taken by the authority, that authority called carabineros, and moreover those carabineros exaggerate charging things that my son, at least, would not do. Because you know how you raised your children. And my son is not going to walk with a gun to threaten another person. No... What are they talking about? No... Chile is not for this. My nation is not for this. Now, You i'm the government, think of the people who really give value to our country, which gives quality to our country. Think about that. Please. Here politics no longer works. Politics, neither of the left, nor of the right, nor of whatever side it serves. Here humanity serves. Humanity, gentlemen. What are we talking about? Humanity, where is it? Where is it for all of us? And here are how many young people who are wasting their time and at the same time exposing themselves to something happening to them here? They can be raped. They can even be killed. My son has already seen a death. So what are we talking about? Why are they exposing good people in a place like this that is a place of danger? Please, I ask that. And thanks to this network that is accompanying us in this pain. Because this is a pain for me... a great one. It is terrible for us to see this whole situation and, worse, when it is because of something unfair. So thank you very much and I hope this is solved later because this is already making me desperate. I would like to finish by saying that I hope my son will leave this place alive and nothing will happen to him. So thank you very much and I congratulate you for what you have been doing.”
Interview with relatives of Carlos Marchan, arrested in a march held on Thursday, November 20th
“This is their strategy to reduce the mobilization, to silence the people, to scare them and to keep them at home. But that will not happen, because we are fighting”
“I am María Jose Marchan. I'm here (in jail Santiago 1, N. del T.) because I come to see my brother, Carlos Marchan, who is unfairly detained. In a march on Thursday 20 there was an infiltrated paco. It was a march of about 70 people, and my son went and pushed the paco who was infiltrated. They abused him a lot. My brother went and took My son out of the group because it was too late and they had to leave. They two had already left the march, were already arriving at Ñuble, when a white van, with Mapuche flags and hooded people inside, took my son. They arrested him. My brother, in the context that my son is his nephew and that we are a very united family, went closer to ask the police to release him. He never abused them or anything. And carabineros did not want to leave him. Then my brother asked them to take him in detention too, and they started pushing him and said no.
Then my brother told them "I beg you, take me, I don't want to leave my nephew alone." And there they took him and made him climb into the van... and today my brother is in jail, waiting for a sentence of 5 years and 1 day for asking the police to take him because he didn't want to leave his nephew alone. ”
What they are saying is that they stole two cameras, a priced backpack, a bicycle from the same infiltrated carabinero, and all the testimonies at the moment are from pacos infiltrated in the mobilizations. Then it is their word against the word of our beloved. ” “It was a march of around 70 people and 37 were carabineros. There are 37 testimonies in prosecution. They gave their testimonies accusing my brother and my son. There are 37 in a march of 70. They incite violence. The first who shouted that the one on the bicycle was paco was another paco, with a hood, with a pullover. Then they incite the kids to violence. They incite them because we have anger, we have hate, they are treating us badly, they are taking everything away from us, our country is a mess. Life is unfair to us, we have to break our backs working every day for what? to have nothing, to live day to day as they say, to scarcely make the ends meet. You live to fight every day. My family is not a criminal one. You can go and ask people in the passage and even in the entire shanty town. My brother works with children in the chapel. He works in two chapels, in the big one and in the small one, in San Gregorio's and Coronel's. My brother was going to be a councilor. We do bingos, we help people. We will never steal from anyone, much less from the pacos. ”
We are in this situation where the police, the pacos, violate us and the entire system violates us because we arrived at the detention control where all the evidence against them was dismissed. They are released to wait for the investigation in the house, and what happens to the prosecution? They appeal to a decree they have, they have to go to the court of appeals. And in appeals court, since there is the state security law, they are detained. In other words, we are violated by the police, the state violates us, justice violates us, absolutely everyone violates us. What can we do to get justice? At this time, what tool do we have? Poor people, of effort, what tool do we have for them to be free? My partner, who has dedicated his entire life to social work, is currently imprisoned, like a criminal, mistreated by the entire system as it works in there. So now all we want is for this to become massive because we know that what happens to him happens to many more families. Day after day after day people arrive... People have arrived with their sight destroyed. People over 60 have arrived in detention... for being a danger to society? People who have been involved only in religious matters and who went to the police station to find their son. The pacos threw a tear gas grenade, the man passed out and now they are accusing him of wanting to steal a service weapon. That is what is happening right now. My partner devoted his life in social work. He has worn out his feet on the street to help people. And now they are accusing him of a robbery with violence... against whom? Against carabineros, small surprise! The carabineros are again giving the high note in all this. We see that the whole system is rotten. At this time the court of appeals did not even talk about what was happening, they just arrived and said ‘preventive detention ... for him and for all the people who came after, who will continue to fall in detention, because this does not change. This is their strategy to reduce mobilizations, to silence people, to frighten them and to keep them at home. But they are not going to succeed, because we are fighting for that. They who are within also keep feeling strong and believing that what they did is correct. Because the "authorities" are the ones who are wrong. ”
