Press association says Peru had 82 attacks on journalists in January-April

In the first four months of 2011, Peru’s National Association of Journalists (ANP) has recorded 82 attacks against journalists within the country. Thirty-seven of the incidents were reported as verbal and physical aggression against reporters, the ANP’s human rights office said. Harassment and threats accounted for 17 cases, while administrative pressure, which includes a journalist being [...]

Bidding process for Memory Museum construction to start next week

The bidding process for the construction of Peru’s Memory Museum is scheduled to start next week, the president of the commission for developing the museum, artist Fernando de Szyszlo, said. “The only thing left to do is select a national or foreign company to make the museum a reality,” state news agency Andina reported De [...]

Amnesty International: Peru sends contradictory messages on human rights

Peru’s government has been sending contradictory messages on its human rights stance to the international community, according to Hugo Relva, a legal advisor to Amnesty International. On the one hand, Peru has shown positive steps by inaugurating the Memory Museum. The museum is to honor the 70,000 people who died during the 20 years of political [...]

Executive decrees raise concern of “amnesty” for human rights crimes, and criminalization of social protests

Four legislative decrees enacted by the Executive this past week have raised serious concern among human rights organizations, which believe these laws have been written to benefit specific people charged or convicted of human rights violations committed in the two decades of internal conflict. The decrees, published September 1 in the official gazette El Peruano, [...]

Peru Court Studies Appeal of Fujimori Verdicts

Peru’s Supreme Court began today to evaluate ex-president Alberto Fujimori’s appeal to annul the verdicts handed down to him earlier this year, for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta murders, and in the corruption and kidnapping trial. Fujimori’s attorney, César Nakasaki, is requesting to annul the 25 year sentence given to Fujimori in April this [...]

Peru prostitutes and transvestites take to the streets to demand fair treatment

Days after a transvestite was killed by a drunken man in Lima’s impoverished La Victoria district, more than one hundred prostitutes and transvestites took to the streets of Peru’s capital last week to demand a end to violence and discrimination. “We are asking to be recognized as sex workers, and to be covered by labor [...]

OPINION: The Innocence of the Guilty

By José Luis Mejía All politicians are guilty, or almost all of them. If they were judged by a court made up of good men (in the true sense of the word) –as the Spanish poet Antonio Machado would say—nine out of ten would land up, bones and crimes, in jail. Power corrupts and few [...]

Peru’s former army intelligence chief: military provided assistance to death squad

The former head of the Army’s Intelligence Service, SIE, testified yesterday during the human rights trial of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori that the SIE provided arms and military equipment to an elite unit he believes was the Colina group death squad in the early 1990′s. Col. Víctor Raúl Silva Mendoza denied the Colina group was [...]

U.S. judge awards victims of Peruvian massacre $37 million

A Miami federal judge has ordered a retired Peruvian army major to pay $37 million for his role in the 1985 massacre of 72 peasants in a remote Andean village during Peru’s internal conflict with Shining Path and MRTA guerrillas, daily Correo reported.

Head of Colina group testifies at Fujimori trial

The former head of the Colina group death squad, Maj. Santiago Martin Rivas, testified Wednesday at the human rights trial of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori that the existence of the paramilitary group is a fabrication made in order to discredit Peru’s Armed Forces. “For many years, selfish people have been creating, have been fabricating, the [...]

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