On Saturday the 14th August, special police forces violently raided 3 squatted social centers and many private homes in 5 communes in the cities of Santiago and Valparaíso in Chile. The police intimidated people with weapons of war, broke windows and doors, and took many personal items from the houses. 14 people were detained without being informed of the reason for their detention for 3 hours.
Later 6 people were released on probation for lack of evidence against them. As for the people that remain imprisoned, they were put in isolation cells in maximum security jails where they are awaiting a 180 day-long investigation process and potentially a 20-year sentence for alledged illegal terrorist association. The detained are accused of being involved in making and blowing up the bombs that exploded lately in Santiago. According to the prosecutor, their association was a hierarchical organization directed by key leaders. This supposition is in absolute contradiction with anarchist ideology – most of the kidnapped people have been labelled as anarchists – which is opposed to the concepts of “leaders” and “hierarchies”…
Today, these 14 comrades – anarchists, communicators and social fighters who show solidarity to unjust causes, are involved in open squatted social centers where they sustain libraries, video libraries, gardens, who exchange and question ideas and actions in forums and activities conducted in a horizontal manner – these people are automatically criminalised; prosecutors have enough ambiguous evidence to take their freedom away from them. For example, a tapped telephone call where a mother demanded that one of the accused people be taken care of; this was used as evidence against her. The open squatted spaces and the people who are committed to denouncing and transforming on a daily basis their own lives and their society have become more vulnerable to the apprehensions of the state and its prosecutions, which illustrates that this prosecution is also ideological.
We make a call to build an international support network for the people imprisoned on the 14th of August. Today more than ever! Internationalists of the world to solidarity and action, to face the kidnappings and lies of the Chilean state!
Original support blog for the 14 detainees (in Spanish and other languages).
The original article, which has more background info, can be read on UK Indymedia.