In this short video posted on Instagram, Sleydo’, standing beside her sister filmmaker Jen Wickham, says:
“My name is Sleydo’ from the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation in so-called Canada. We’ve been reoccupying our territory and defending our land against the invasion of the state and industry that is destroying our land and waters. We want to call for the immediate release of Pablo Colhuan Nahuel who is a political prisoner in the Mapuche territories. They are defending a sacred site, one of their ceremonial sites. People have been criminalized for defending this site. People have been jailed and aren’t able to return home to their communities. We have to stop the criminalization of Indigenous people internationally for upholding our rights and our responsibilities to our homelands.”
Canal Abierto reports: “On the morning of October 30, 2025, the longko [traditional leader] of the Lof [community] Lafquen Winkul Mapu [that includes fifteen traditional rukas — low wooden houses — and a community centre], Juan Pablo Colhuan Nahuel, brother of the machi [spiritual leader and healer] Betiana and cousin of Rafita Nahuel [who was killed by a special unit of the naval police during a land eviction], was arrested in Chubut, about 20 kilometers from Cushamen.”
Infoterritorial notes: “Colhuan Nahuel remains in Unit 6 of Rawson, a maximum security prison. …The Lawyers’ Guild, which legally represents him, reported that Colhuan Nahuel is at the disposal of the Federal Court of General Roca for this case of usurpation, linked to the property that National Parks had ceded to the State Gas Personnel Union.”
In November 2023, Al Jazeera reported: “[Betiana] Colhuan belongs to one of Argentina’s Indigenous peoples, the Mapuche. The land her community used to sit within falls under the administration of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, the country’s oldest national park and a popular outdoor destination.”
“In 2017, shortly after they moved in, members of the Albatross group, a special unit of Argentina’s naval police, tried to evict them based on complaints from the park administration that they were ‘usurping’ the land. The expulsion quickly turned violent. Colhuan’s cousin, 22-year-old Rafael Nahuel, was shot dead by police in the altercation.”
While it appears they were able to stay on their ancestral land after that attempted eviction, “Colhuan and her neighbours were forcibly expelled in 2022. Now, they fear government inertia and the outcome of Argentina’s presidential election on November 19 could permanently end their hopes of returning.”
Al Jazeera further explains: “Though often associated with the neighbouring country of Chile — where they constitute the largest Indigenous group — the Mapuche predate national borders. Their ancestral territory includes the southernmost reaches of Argentina, part of a region known as Patagonia.”
At this beginning of this year, Pablo Colhuan stated from prison: “If my trial does not begin in March, I will go on a dry hunger strike”
We continue to follow this.
Photo: Sleydo’ met with Peace Brigades International accompanied defender Jani Silva on Wet’suwet’en territory in June 2025. Silva has faced multiple threats and risks to her life for defending the Perla Amazónica Peasant Reserve Zone in the Putumayo region of Colombia from armed groups and industry.
