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News > Latin America

Mapuche Leader Moved to House Arrest After Hunger Strike

  • Protesters in Santiago, Chile demand the release of the Mapuche spiritual leader Francisca Linconao.

    Protesters in Santiago, Chile demand the release of the Mapuche spiritual leader Francisca Linconao. | Photo: Reuters

Published 5 January 2017
Opinion

Francisco Linconao weighed 88 pounds when she was released Thursday and reportedly began to lose her spiritual powers.

Chile granted hunger striking Mapuche leader Francisca Linconao house arrest Thursday as she completed her second week on strike at 88 pounds or just over 36 kilograms.

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The Temuco Court of Appeals ruled in favor of her motion for legal protection, replacing her pretrial detention with total house arrest and ending Linconao’s hunger strike, Machi spokeswoman Ingrid Conejeros said after the court ruling.

Linconao was accused of arson, along with a group of 10 others, which led to the deaths of two powerful landlords, Werner Luchsinger and Vivianne Mackay in 2013. However, the evidence that was used to detain her through an anti-terror law remains suspect, with the main witness retracting her statement.

After her arrest on March 30 and countless delay, Linconao decided to pressure the court to change the security measures against her and began a hunger strike Dec. 23. Her health quickly deteriorated.

A report on her health released last week said she was on the verge of dying, with the risk of “permanent consequences in various vital functions, such as neurological, liver, cardiac and renal functions.”

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According to the doctors, the detained leader not only suffers physical deterioration but spiritual loss of strength as she is deprived of freedom “which prevents her from accessing what she considers her main source of energy, the one that comes from nature, its sacred ceremonies and its mission to offer health.”

The Indigenous activist is an important spiritual leader and is a Machi or Mapuche doctor. The Mapuche people believe they must be in contact with nature with both body and soul to be able to heal.

The doctors added that should Linconao die during the hunger strike, conflicts with Indigenous groups in the country could worsen and “would mark a serious precedent in terms of human rights at national and international levels.”

According to the report, she had not been granted house arrest because of the country’s anti-terror laws.

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