Peru’s Authorities Declare State of Emergency as Uprising Intensifies After President Arrested
03:28 GMT 15.12.2022 (Updated: 07:05 GMT 15.12.2022)
© AFP 2023 / ERNESTO BENAVIDES
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Just one week after detaining the country’s first working-class indigenous president, the unelected regime in Peru granted itself extraordinary powers to crack down on widespread opposition in the streets.
The newly-minted regime of Dina Boluarte in Peru has declared a state of emergency, suspending the right to "personal security and freedom" just one week after state security forces arrested the elected president, Pedro Castillo, in what many of the country’s neighboring governments are characterizing as a coup d’etat.
The declaration authorizes the deployment of troops alongside police, nixes the right to assembly and freedom of movement and allows security forces to search the residences of any Peruvians as they see fit, without needing to demonstrate cause or seek the permission of homeowners.
At least seven protesters – including multiple teenagers – have been killed amid the police and military crackdown on the huge demonstrations which have rocked Peru this week.
Claiming the unrest demanded “a forceful and authoritative response from the government,” the new regime’s Defense Minister, Luis Otarola Peñaranda, announced the mobilization of security forces throughout the country Wednesday.
“The immediate protection by the Armed Forces of the strategic points of national assets, airports, hydroelectric plants and all that infrastructure that, due to its strategic value, serves to guarantee the life and subsistence of all Peruvians, has been ordered,” Peñaranda declared in an address aired on state-run television.
The repression is reportedly set to extend throughout the nation’s major roadways as well.
“We are going to assume control of the national road network throughout the country, to ensure the free transit of all Peruvians,” Peñaranda noted during the address.
“In a session of the Council of Ministers, the declaration of a state of emergency at the national level for 30 days was agreed” upon, Peñaranda wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “With this measure we seek to guarantee order, the continuity of economic activities and the protection of millions of families.”
En sesión del Consejo de Ministros se acordó la declaratoria del estado de emergencia a nivel nacional por 30 días. Con esta medida buscamos garantizar el orden, la continuidad de actividades económicas y la protección de millones de familias.
— Alberto Otárola (@AlbertoOtarolaP) December 14, 2022
Supporters of President Castillo gathered Wednesday outside the detention center in Lima where the beleaguered head of state is being held in anticipation of his release, but Judge Juan Carlos Checkley announced at a virtual court session that he’s ordering Castillo held until at least Thursday.
In a hand-written note published to Castillo’s Twitter page Wednesday, he thanked the presidents of Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and Bolivia for speaking out on his behalf, and urged his backers to stay strong.
In the face of a “pro-coup sector” which seeks to “silence” Peru’s working and indigenous populations, “we will remain firm and we will not renounce or abandon the just cause and the popular will of the Peruvian people,” Castillo promised.
