Human rights have been violated on these occasions. Women, children and elderly people have been held without legal justification, as well as pregnant women and those with babies in arms. They have had to suffer racist abuse, torture and physical assault. The companies' objective is to intimidate Mapuche people, and prevent them from demanding the restitution of their ancestral land which they have expropriated. This was widely publicised in the Chilean media just recently.
Many communities are virtually under siege.
The police are patrolling them, taking photographs, filming and interrogating leaders, destroying household possessions, violently preventing people from meeting and holding peaceful protests. Some families claim the police are stealing their money and humble possessions. As there is no effective recourse to law, these actions go unpunished. None of the many complaints about arbitrary offenses and racial abuse have been dealt with by the authorities. Numerous Mapuche requests for an investigation of their complaints have been met by a deafening silence of the part of local and central government.