URGENT DECLARATION

In Defense of Democracy, the Rule of Law, and the Right to a Dignified Life: End Impunity and the Criminalization of Social Protests and Mobilizations

December 7 2023

The International Mission for the Observation and Defense of Human Rights in Perú, which documented violations there from March 7 to 15, 2023, which included members of the signatory organizations, expresses its solidarity with the Peruvian people and their urgent demands for justice, full reparations, dissolution of the national congress, new elections, and a new constitution, as well as the immediate release from arbitrary imprisonment of President Castillo, who has been detained unjustly since December 7, 2022. These unfulfilled demands have special resonance as the first anniversary is observed of the illegitimate régime led by Dina Boluarte. The systematic impunity promoted by her government is reflected meanwhile in the outrageous decision of Peru’s Constitutional Court to free former President Fujimori. This unfounded determination puts Perú in open contempt of previous decisions issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

1. Since December 7, 2022 the current government in Perú has been characterized by authoritarianism, militarism, and repression, exacerbated by racism, socio-economic discrimination, and gender violence. These dimensions have been deployed as a way to distract attention from this régime’s corruption and submission to the interests of the country’s neocolonial élites and their complicity with the ravages of extractivism, ecocide, and the deepening of U.S imperialist hegemony.
2. We also repudiate the deployment of U.S troops in Perú, the militarization of its borders, and the promotion of trade and investment agreements that undermine the country’s national and popular sovereignty. This includes those associated with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, such as those related to mining and the exploitation of natural resources. It is in this context that we joined together with mobilized sectors of the Peruvian immigrant community in the U.S to publicly reject Boluarte’s pretensions of hosting the next APEC summit in Perú in 2024. We are committed to mobilize support for the massive national and international sectors that oppose this initiative. There have also been important mobilizations protesting Boluarte’s régime by Peruvian migrant communities and others in solidarity with them in New York, Geneva, Mexico City, Bogotá, and on a nmational scale in Italy, among other spaces.
3. Our preliminary report documents, and our forthcoming final report, will detail further, the specific contours of the generalized pattern of crimes against humanity perpetrated by this régime. This includes dozens of extrajudicial ejecutions, arbitrary detentions and unlawful use of deadly force, which has primarily targeted peasant, indigenous and ancestral communities in Perú’s Andean and southern regions. We are also gravely concerned in this context about the recurrent pattern of assassinations and persecution of indigenous environmental defenders throughout the country.
4. We also underline our commitment with all of the victims of state-romoted violence in Perú since December 7, as well as with the widespread dissemination of our upcoming final report, and with necessary follow-up to its recommendations. We also specifically express our deepest solidarity with the national and international demands for justice of the Peruvian people, and for the restoration of the rule of law, an end to impunity, and the fundamental transformation of Perú within a new framework of mutual understanding and authentic democracy. These demands are more relevant than ever on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Respectfully

• International Mission for the Observation and Defense of Human Rights in Perú
• International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement (ITCPM)
• Global Exchange
• National Lawyers Guild International (USA)
• Asociación Americana de Juristas (American Association of Jurists- AAJ)
• Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC)
• International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL, Paris)
• Professor Gill H. Boehringer (Australia)