Chile is considering a special prison for indigenous peoples

The Chilean Ministry of Justice is currently examining the possibility of creating a detention center exclusively for detainees belonging to indigenous peoples. 

“There is a group of parliamentarians from both the opposition and the ruling party who have already formally proposed to us the possibility of creating a prison for people serving a sentence who are Mapuche people. We’re looking into that,” Chile’s Undersecretary of State for Justice, Jaime Gajardo, told La Tercera newspaper. 

He pointed out that the government is examining the cost of this measure “and whether it is possible within the framework of ILO Convention 169“, which refers to the specific rules for the realization of the rights of indigenous peoples. “There must be security for the inmates, their families and also for the police officers, so that the riots on the streets of the cities where the prisons are located come to an end,” Gajardo added.

This announcement comes months after Chilean Justice Minister Marcela Ríos met with MPs from various parties related to the detention concessions for indigenous community members, at which they discussed the administrative transfer of detainees on hunger strike in Angol prison in southern Chile. 

Last November, at least three trucks and seven forestry companies’ machines were destroyed in an arson attack in Lautaro, in the La Araucanía region, the scene of a territorial conflict between indigenous communities, mining companies and the Chilean state in the south of the country. 

The action was allegedly promoted by the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), one of the main radical organizations of the Mapuche movement, which advocates “autonomy and territorial control” and a political line of “national liberation”.

In La Araucanía and other areas of southern Chile, there has been a decades-long territorial dispute between the state, some Mapuche communities and forestry companies that are exploiting what indigenous people consider their ancestral lands. 

The Mapuche people, Chile’s largest indigenous group, lay claim to the land they inhabited for centuries before it was forcibly occupied by the Chilean State in the late 19th century in a process officially dubbed the “Pacification of Araucanía,” and most of it is today forest company owned. 

In this context, arson attacks on machines and property are common and the conflict has claimed the lives of many members of the Mapuche community who have been attacked by the authorities.

With information from latinapress

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