An of them major controversies after the emergence and proliferation of the game mobile Pokemon GO around the world, is that several “Pokeparadas”is have established in places of high value emotional and of remember, as for example, the Museum of Auschwitz and to the Museum of the Holocaust of New York.
These sites actually asked formally the company that developed the game, Niantic, Inc. Be removed from the map of the game.
One of the main arguments, is to reject that these places of memory transform in “commodification and entertainment spaces“.
For this reason, Villa Grimaldi, Center of torture and detention of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and that today is a center of memory, called formally out as “Pokeparada”.
The Corporation Park for peace, who manages Villa Grimaldi in the commune of Peñalolén, released the following statement:
Villa Grimaldi (ex barracks Newfoundland) was the main headquarters of the DINA during them first years of the dictatorship civic military, place by where passed near 4,500 people in quality of kidnapped, who were subjected to atrocious torture and harassment. Nearly 300 of them are missing or were killed in this place.
The Villa Grimaldi Peace Park is a place of memory, recovered by survivors, family members and the civil society, whose mission is to preserve and communicate the memories of those who were victims of State terrorism during the dictatorship military civic.
The game Pokemon GO does not pursue objectives that link to our educational project, cultural and testimonial, but it is a private initiative of court business that does not promote a culture of human rights.
The Park Corporation by the peace Villa Grimaldi, rejects the use of this site’s memory, which before was a site of torture, disappearances and extermination, for a game that does not show less respect for our history and banalises profit space, mentioning us on the map in the application as “Villa Gremlin”.
Demand to the company Niantic, Inc. perform them procedures corresponding to block and/or remove of his circuit to the Park by the peace Villa Grimaldi, besides offer apologies public, not only to our Corporation, but also to them survivors and family of them victims of the terrorism of State.
