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PeruDespite the state of emergency, the gatherings continue
Former President Pedro Castillo awaits the decision of the Peruvian justice on Thursday on the extension of his detention.
Many police and members of the armed forces were visible in the center of Lima, Thursday, December 15, 2022.
AFP
Thousands of supporters of Pedro Castillo converged on Thursday in the middle of the afternoon in the center of Lima for a rally, while the deposed former president awaited the court’s decision on the extension of his detention, AFP noted.
Millions of Peruvians have been demonstrating for several days in the country to demand the release of the radical left president, in pre-trial detention since his failed attempt to dissolve Parliament on December 7 and his dismissal. He is prosecuted for “rebellion” and “conspiracy”.
The Ministry of Health announced that an eighth person had died since Sunday. Nearly 200 people were injured. The mobilization does not weaken despite the state of emergency declared Wednesday in the country for thirty days by the new president Dina Boluarte, ex-vice-president of Pedro Castillo.
“Energetic, authoritarian response”
“We have to fight. The president is Pedro Castillo,” Milagros Quispe Diaz told AFP, approaching the outskirts of parliament where daily rallies have been held since the leader’s dismissal. “I am an ignorant woman who knows her rights. We are not terrorists. The president is kidnapped. There is no other word. There is no justice,” added Lucy Carranza, a 41-year-old cleaner.
Many police and members of the armed forces were visible in the center of Lima as well as clearing roads in the south of the country, AFP noted. “We need an energetic, authoritarian response” to the violence, launched Defense Minister Alberto Otarola, stressing that the measure included “the suspension of freedom of movement and assembly” with “possibility of a curfew”.
The strongest protests are taking place in the south of the country, where five airports (Andahuaylas, Arequipa, Puno, Cuzco and Ayacucho) remain closed. More than a hundred roads are also blocked on Thursday. Nearly 2000 Bolivian goods trucks are blocked at the border with Bolivia. Hundreds of tourists who wanted to visit Machu Picchu, Peru’s tourist gem, have also been stranded since Tuesday. The train linking Cuzco and the Inca Citadel is suspended due to the unrest.
‘No Justice’
Thursday morning, a court of the Supreme Court examined the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for placement in pre-trial detention for 18 months of ex-president Pedro Castillo. The hearing was suspended and the judge is expected to announce his decision when it resumes at 5:00 p.m. local time (11:00 p.m. Swiss time).
In pre-trial detention since December 7, Pedro Castillo shouted conspiracy on Tuesday, launching: “I will never give up”. Wednesday, in a letter posted on Twitter, he said he wanted to seize the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In front of the police barracks where Pedro Castillo is detained, in Até (east of Lima), many of his supporters camp and demand his release. His niece, Vilma Vasquez, 42, denounced to the press the absence of “justice”.
“From the first day he took office and even more during the campaign, we were already terrorists. The day President Castillo took office, they wouldn’t let him rule, we were thieves, we were corrupt. There is no justice,” she said.
Election calendar
Opponents of Camp Castillo say some of its support comes from Movadef, the political wing of Shining Path, the Maoist guerrillas that claimed thousands of lives in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s. They call them “terrorists.” “. The power is trying to enforce order by force but also to appease discontent by acceding to some of the demands of the demonstrators.
President Dina Boluarte has announced that she wants to advance the electoral calendar again “to December 2023”. Dina Boluarte, who crystallizes part of the discontent in her person, had already pledged on Sunday to bring them forward from 2026 to April 2024, without stopping the protests. She herself is affected by the measure: her mandate theoretically runs until 2026, Pedro Castillo having been elected in 2021 for five years.
(AFP)