IACHR Slams Peru’s De Facto Government for Human Rights Violations Against Protesters

The IACHR characterized the state’s response to demonstrators as the “disproportionate, indiscriminate, and lethal use of force.”

On May 3, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released a report on human rights violations in Peru during protests that broke out following the ouster of left-wing president Pedro Castillo in December.

In its 113-page-long report, the IACHR established that the country’s security forces committed “serious human rights violations” as they cracked down on nationwide protests against the de facto Dina Boluarte government. According to reports, at least 60 people were killed in these protests.

Demonstrations began again in last January after a lull over the year-end holidays [Hugo Courotto/Reuters]

The IACHR characterized the state’s response to demonstrators as the “disproportionate, indiscriminate, and lethal use of force.” The report added that in some cases, the government’s actions could be classified as “extrajudicial executions” and “massacres.”

In this regard, the IACHR said that an objective investigation must be conducted “with due diligence and an ethnic-racial approach,” and by “prosecutors specialized in human rights.”

The day after the report was released, the Boluarte government rejected the IACHR’s report and dismissed its conclusions.

“We reject the supposed findings of extrajudicial killings and the claim of mass massacres,” said Boluarte at a press conference.

Boluarte downplayed IACHR’s report, claiming that the report did not in fact confirm the existence of human rights violations in her government, it merely confirmed the possibility of there being human rights violations.

from the Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service