Three years after the alleged forced disappearance of Argentinian activist Santiago Maldonado, the Benetton family continues to violate indigenous rights in Patagonia, writes Marcella Via.
Santiago Maldonado
Veronica Heredia, the lawyer representing missing activist Santiago Maldonado's family, has said they will wait for the autopsy results of the body found on October 17 in the Chubut River, in Argentina.
Sergio Maldonado, the brother of the missing activist, also questioned how the body was found upstream, in a previously checked area, where a corpse could easily have been previously found.
More than 100,000 people filled the Plaza de Mayo in the country’s capital, Buenos Aires, on September 1 to demand the reappearance with life of indigenous rights activist Santiago Maldonado. The rally was held to mark a month since 28-year-old Maldonado was last seen.
Maldonado had been participating in a protest with a group of indigenous Mapuche people on August 1 in Chubut province, in Argentina’s iconic Patagonia region. The protest was repressed by Border Force officers, who witnesses allege were seen dragging Maldonado into a van.
September 1 marks one month since the last time he was seen. Santiago Maldonado, a 28-year-old artisan, was protesting on August 1 in solidarity with the struggle of the Mapuche people from the Lof Cushamen community in Chubut province, in Argentina’s Patagonia region.
Football players, past and present, have spoken out on the case of Santiago Maldonado, an indigenous rights activist who has not been seen since Border Force officers violently broke up a protest by a Mapuche community in Argentina’s Patagonia region on August 1.
Activist and human rights groups are demanding an investigation into the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado. He has been missing since August 1, when he was last seen being dragged away by Border Patrol agents.