Anarchist comrades Juan, Nataly and Guillermo were arrested in Santiago on September 18th 2014.
Juan is held in pretrial detention in the Santiago 1 prison, accused of involvement in two bomb attacks that occurred on July 13th and September 8th 2014, and were claimed by the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (Chile); he’s also charged with participation in a coordinated attack against two police stations on August 11th 2014 that was claimed by C.I.V (International Conspiracy for Revenge).
Nataly is held in pretrial detention in San Miguel prison, accused of participation in the July 13th bomb attack and possession of explosives.
Guillermo is under full house arrest, charged with possession of explosives in relation to the same case.
On April 1st 2015, the three comrades released their first open letter by which they embrace the call for solidarity days with the prisoners of social war in Chile (between the 10th and 20th of April), which was initiated by the rebellious prisoners Tamara Sol Farías Vergara, Alejandro Astorga Valdés, Carlos Gutierrez Quiduleo, Juan Aliste Vega, Freddy Fuentevilla Saa, Hans Niemeyer Salinas, Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda, Alfredo Canales Moreno, and also supported by the recently remanded comrades Natalia Collado and Javier Pino.
On April 6th 2015, Enrique Guzmán – a close friend and comrade of Juan, Nataly and Guillermo – was arrested and a few days later sent to pretrial detention, accused of participation in the aforementioned coordinated attack against two police stations. At the same time, the cops have reportedly harassed several supporters of theirs, going so far as to (literally) abduct another compa in the middle of a street.
Juan, Nataly and Guillermo are currently on hunger strike, demanding:
– the immediate release of compañero Enrique Guzmán;
– an end to assaults and disciplinary sanctions towards prisoners in struggle;
– the immediate transfer of compañera Nataly Casanova from solitary confinement to an “ordinary” prison wing;
– an end to harassment of people who stand in solidarity with incarcerated comrades;
– an end to DNA-based prosecutions.
Below are their hunger strike initiation statements that we originally received in Spanish in the early hours of April 15th 2015.
“this is our clear response repudiating and spitting unhesitatingly at the last repressive blow against our close ones”
This is our response to the harassment of Power and its repressive forces against our solidarian circle, relatives, friends and comrades. They are being subjected daily to persecutions, intimidation, harassment, assaults and kidnappings by the cops; in the face of all this clearly because of our criteria and furthermore our conviction it’s impossible for us to sit idly by.
Thus, as of April 14th 2015, we initiate a mobilisation as a form of protest and in response to the emotional blackmail that we are suffering by Power and its repressive institutions. We turn our discontent into practice in an unsubmissive manner, as is our essence in general, using our body as a barricade and initiating the paralysation of our activities and a hunger strike by taking only liquids on the inside, demanding:
– The immediate release of Enrique Alfonso Guzmán Amadeo, taking into consideration the ridiculous accusation and delirious evidence presented by the public prosecutor.
– That the scientific validity of DNA evidence be established. Is there a real certainty of its use being 100% accurate and precise in order to incriminate? Principally there is no scientific certainty of DNA analysis, especially when there are samples with biological traits of several people, while the prosecutor’s office makes use of this evidence as proof of great weight when in fact it is not, and especially the way they have set the evidence in our case tries to have us believe that the biological record that was left behind after an explosion is extremely valid and accurate, even when geneticists and criminologists have discarded its validity and quality.
– We demand an end to harassment and persecution that the repressive forces have unleashed against our closest environment, wanting to achieve intimidation and criminalisation against those who have not hesitated to manifest their love and active, unconditional solidarity. Clear evidence of this harassment is the incarceration of our comrade Enrique [currently in pretrial detention] – who having nothing to hide or deny decided to assist us regularly, visiting us at the various centres of torture and extermination – as well as the abduction of a friend [now released], whom they grabbed by the neck and put by force in a car on a public street.
We demand this cessation of harassment both outside and inside the penitentiaries, since my compañera Nataly and I are being punished daily by the Chilean gendarmerie [prison guards]; clearly our response has not been submissive, and that has cost us several sanctions and assaults, but we clearly intend to meet each other again within the prison instance.
– We demand an immediate solution to the situation of our compañera Nataly Antonieta Casanova Muñoz, because since her arrival at the prison in San Miguel she finds herself in a disciplinary regime and severe isolation, and the screws ignore the requirement for her transfer to another wing, leaving our compañera in a “prison limbo”. We demand the immediate transfer of our compañera to a wing/tower where she will be able to have contact/relationship with other inmates and more hours in the yard, because since arriving there she has only had an hour of yard time, this being a conduct/protocol completely irregular.
INDEFINITE LIQUID-BASED HUNGER STRIKE
Juan Alexis Flores Riquelme
1st Wing, Santiago 1 prison
*
Since Monday, April 13th 2015, I have started a hunger strike through the ingestion of liquids (only drinking water) against the reprisals of state apparatuses to our closest environment (relatives and friends). Fed up with the deliriums of prosecutors in the southern zone and the lies of the prosecutor Raúl Guzmán, in their media, attempting to incriminate Enrique Guzmán in order to incorporate him in the rotten course that has allowed the initiation and continuation of his investigation (spectacle, persecutions, harassments, threats and even abduction of a friend by plainclothes cops).
We put our consciousness, affectionate ties and ideas against this play of Power, rejecting the imposition of their antiterrorist or whatever laws, because their legislation solely defends their order of privileges and parasitic lives.
Here, within their prison walls, we are neither defeated nor alone, as they claim; we continue to be unsubmissive, free and dignified, fighting anew with our body as a weapon against those who wish to cage and bury struggle, dignity, love and solidarity under the concrete.
We demand:
– The immediate release of our brother, friend and compañero Enrique Guzmán, incarcerated for being close to us and for visiting us in prison.
– An end to persecutions, harassments, abductions and interrogations of our family members and friends, for being those who support us in this situation; because Power is seeking to isolate us.
– We also demand the end of harassment by jailers against all prisoners who are facing this place with dignity; every beating and humiliation will always have an answer, none of us is alone. I stress the increasingly violent harassment and cell raids against my compañero Juan Flores, and that I find myself in a similar situation.
– Their DNA evidence have no scientific validity due to the scarcity and quality of the samples, and that goes for the variety of available biological mixtures, too, as these may coincide with many individuals, and such are the proofs presented by prosecutors as their best evidence. We demand the determination of the validity of DNA evidence through an analysis of methods and samples; considering all scientific aspects, not only the tendentious accusation of prosecutors.
– On a personal level, I let everyone close to me and those who are not indifferent to confinement know that, for 7 months that I have been in preventive detention, I am being held in severe isolation with only 1 hour in the yard a day, without any recreational activity, apart from those that I’m providing myself; so, under this regime, I’m being denied any workshop or recreational activity available in the penitentiary with the excuse that we are very few inmates in our wing. I live with only one inmate/prisoner, sometimes with more, but all are rotated, being myself the only one that’s kept in this unstable situation. Due to the above, I demand the immediate change of wing.
SOLIDARITY, AGITATION AND ACTION AGAINST THE REPRESSIVE ADVANCES
EMBRACING EVERY STRUGGLE AGAINST DOMINATION
Nataly Casanova Muñoz
San Miguel women’s prison
*
To relatives, friends and comrades. To public knowledge.
On April 14th 2015, at midnight, I begin a hunger strike by taking liquids (only drinking water) for the fulfillment of the demands that I indicate below. This is a means of struggle and solidarity, by which we put our health and life at risk. This decision was motivated by recent occurrences that have struck our close environment; Enrique’s arrest, persecution and harassment of our close and solidarian circle, aggression and punishment exercised by the prison guards towards Nataly and Juan. Finally, a whole tangle of machinations exerted by Power and its apparatuses (the Press, prosecutors, cops, etc.), aiming at halting the effective solidarity with our incarcerated comrades.
I know that situations like this are not new, both in this country and in different parts of the world; we/I take examples of struggle wherever these exist, that’s why today and within my rather limited possibilities, I decide to abstain from solid foods in solidarity with my brothers and sisters. We/I carry out this struggle against those who say they practice law and make decisions for the good of society, trumpeting equality before the law, when their own laws and society have been forged by the inequality that reigns under the domination of capitalism.
I cannot stay inert and passive in the face of this repressive context that today strikes my brothers and sisters, so I stand in solidarity with the indefinite hunger strike until our demands are met:
– the immediate release of our brother and compañero Enrique Guzmán Amadeo, arrested and kidnapped by the State, only thanks to the delirious imagination of prosecutors and their yearning to suppress solidarity towards unsubmissive prisoners.
– no more harassment and aggression against Juan and Nataly by prison guards; and, additionally, the cessation of persecution and intimidation towards family members, friends and solidarian people by the State, its prosecutors and cops.
– a solution to the prison situation of Nataly Casanova, compañera held in severe isolation from the beginning of her preventive detention (September 23rd 2014), having only one hour of yard time, and being denied the possibility of coexistence with other inmates who are not being punished, or access to activities of recreation and apprenticeship (workshops, etc.). We demand her immediate transfer to another wing in which this humiliating situation be remedied.
– the scientific clarification of the validity of DNA evidence. That the validity of the analysis method and the accuracy of its results be taken into account, depending on the quality and composition of the samples. Today these DNA proofs are used as the main incriminating evidence in the case, even though both their origin and quality are far from the purported scientific certainty that the prosecutor’s office intends to give to these “magnificent” proofs.
Only struggle and solidarity deliver what is negated by the State; it’s only in this way that we can confront this world con$tructed by and for them.
Guillermo Duran Méndez
In total house arrest