IACHR slams Peru for “serious human rights violations” against protesters

The state of Peru used “disproportionate and indiscriminate” force in response to political protests following the ouster of former President Pedro Castillo, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said in a report released yesterday.

The conclusions were based on visits to Lima, Ica, Arequipa, and Cusco. The IACHR investigators believe that “the high number of people killed and injured with shots to the top half of their bodies and the fact that a significant number of victims were not even involved in the protests or simply happened near the areas where clashes erupted” support the idea of mass abuse by state forces.

IACHR analysts warned that in some cases the actions could be described as “extrajudicial killings” or even a “massacre,” and that such “serious human rights violations” must also be investigated with “ethnic-racial focus.”

The majority of protesters came from Peru’s poor rural areas, the base of Mr. Castillo’s support. The former president was massively unpopular in the capital, Lima, creating a divide still felt today.

Mr. Castillo was ousted in December after attempting a “self-coup,” in which he tried to close Congress by decree. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, later extended on corruption charges. 

But the government of his former vice president, Dina Boluarte, has led a brutal repression against those who protested his ousting. More than 60 Peruvians have died in the protests, most of them at the hands of Peru’s state forces.

The IACHR said the protests also stemmed from deeper demands by peasant communities and indigenous peoples, which Peru must address, including “demands for equal access to rights without discrimination, greater political representation, prior consultation concerning extractive projects, and a fair distribution of the wealth generated by these projects.”

Regional and ethnic stigmas contribute to the deterioration of public debate, the report argued, as does the dysfunctional relationship between the different branches of Peru’s government.

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