Lima — The UN envoy on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, Clemente Volley, said on Wednesday that the Peruvian government used excessive force, which led to the deaths of more than 60 Peruvians during three months of protests that include President Dina Boluarte. His resignation was demanded. ,
In early May, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported in a report that the Peruvian military and police had committed massacres, extrajudicial executions, serious human rights violations as well as a disproportionate and lethal use of force during the protests.
“The excessive and disproportionate use of force during the protests that began in December has resulted in deaths and injuries to protesters and those in the vicinity,” Wooley told reporters at the end of a 10-day working visit. Included were meetings with the president, protesters and relatives. of the victims.
Voule, a Togolese-born lawyer and diplomat, said Peru “must guarantee victims access to justice, treatment, restitution and compensation, even assuming the cost of medical treatment for the injured.”
He said at another time, “Peru is in a very serious situation … There is a lack of trust in its institutions.”
He indicated that after visiting prisons, talking with government ministers, the police, the military, prosecutors and judges, he had not found evidence that the protesters “are terrorists.”
“They are demonstrators,” he said. Peruvian justice confirmed in May 18 months in preventive prison for four protesters while their affiliation was being investigated for alleged crimes or links to a terrorist organization.
“This stigma of being a terrorist should not be used,” he remarked. Four other protesters in the city of Cusco were sentenced in January to nine months in pre-trial detention for offenses of rioting and obstructing the operation of public services.
The reporter said he found “no evidence” that the protesters used firearms.
Demonstrations against Boluarte began on 7 December after Congress ousted his predecessor, Pedro Castillo, who is now in prison for three years amid an investigation into corruption and insurgency. According to the ombudsman’s office, 49 civilians were killed by security forces in the protests that ended in February. Another 11 civilians died in traffic accidents or roadblocks by protesters. Seven uniformed officers were also killed.
Voule indicated that in trying to find the reasons for the protests that started in the southern Peruvian Andes, he found people who “feel overwhelmed by the corruption in the country and call for a real fight against corruption,” precisely those In areas where Peru has wealth, including the mining of copper, a metal that goes to China and of which the country is the second largest exporter in the world.
