• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Indigenous Mapuche prisoners in Chile have been on a hunger strike for 58 days to protest the judicial system and application of anti-terrorism laws. It was reported last week that some Mapuche youth held in detention centers were going to join the hunger strike in solidarity. The indigenous community has fought to obtain rights to their ancestral lands for generations, sometimes occupying privately owned land. In 2002 several Mapuche activists were convicted of terrorist arson and sentenced to 10 years in prison. They subsequently went on hunger strike, with one striker, Patricia Troncoso going 111 days without food, to protest the lengthy prison sentences and the laws used to obtain the convictions. The current hunger strike takes up the same issues. A practice implemented by the Pinochet regime of using hooded witnesses in court to prosecute defendants is also being targeted. In Chile, a unique form of double jeopardy allows civilians to be tried in both military and civilian courts on the same charge. The Inter Press Service reports that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International have criticized Chile’s anti-terrorism laws. In early August the families of many Mapuche prisoners met with members of the Chilean legislature and a Supreme Court Judge to discuss what they call irregularities in the trials of Mapuche activists. Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter announced last week that two bills will be sent to congress to address the Mapuche’s demands.

GUEST: Jorge Fernando Garreton, a journalist and correspondent for Free Speech Radio News, live from Santiago, Chile