Page/12 in Peru
From Lima
Hand in hand with the government and the parliamentary right, the hegemonic media seek to impose a narrative that criminalizes protests, stigmatizes anti-government protesters as violent and terrorists, and washes face with a repression that has left 48 people dead by gunfire. the police and the army, and more than a thousand wounded. Regarding the dead and wounded, the mainstream media justify the repression, applaud it and ask for more. Terrorism is accused without evidence, judicial persecution is promoted and those who deviate from that unique discourse are demonized. The drama, pain and demands for justice of the victims are made invisible. Official lies – including the most absurd ones, such as President Dina Boluarte’s claim that protesters shot and killed each other – are repeated as truth.
A media plan
In this dark media panorama, the alternative media online and the foreign press denounce what the traditional local media –with the exceptions of the newspaper La República and the weekly Hildebrandt in their Trece- remain silent: the repression that shoots to kill, the arbitrary arrests , abuses, judicial persecution against social leaders and protesters. And they give space to the voices of the victims. In response, the extreme right allied with the government harass and threaten them.
The investigative journalism portal IDL Reporteros published a revealing report that, with solid evidence, showed that in the Andean Ayacucho, where on December 15 the army killed ten residents, security forces fired on protesters who were not attacking the military, and even against those who did not participate in the protest. This refuted the official version that the deaths occurred during the response to a violent attack by the residents.
The extreme right goes home
The violent far-right group La Resistencia -popularly renamed La Pestilencia- linked to Fujimorismo and the fascist Renovación Popular (RP) party of the mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, went to the house of journalist Gustavo Gorriti, director of IDL Reporters, to harass and threaten him. For an hour they were shouting insults and death threats with megaphones in front of his house. “Gorriti is not Peruvian, he is Jewish” and “Gorriti, your days are numbered”were part of the boisterous chorus of verbal assaults.
It is not the first time that Gorriti -a benchmark in investigative journalism that has revealed the scope of Odebrecht’s corruption in Peru and exposed a judicial mafia linked to Fujimorismo- has been harassed by this ultra-right group, but it is the first time they do it at home. The Resistance has also harassed, always with impunity, the prosecutors investigating Keiko Fujimori and to the electoral authorities who refused to endorse the false accusation of electoral fraud made by the right wing to steal Pedro Castillo’s victory.
From Gorriti’s house, the ultra-rightists headed towards the house of the journalist Rosa María Palacios, to repeat the boisterous hostilization. Palacios is a right-wing journalist, a defender of neoliberalism, but her denunciations of the human rights violations committed by the Boluarte government and her criticism of Fujimorismo have earned her the hatred of the ultra-right, which shouts “communist” at her and the threat .
Speaking to Página/12, journalist Gustavo Gorriti said that This neo-fascist gang “is linked to the most primitive and extremist ideologies of the ultra-right and to corrupt groups. His verbal aggressiveness has been growing. Experience teaches that there is a moment when all the steps of verbal aggression have been climbed and physical violence is passed on. I think we are not far from that. They have already made some physical attacks. Mayor López Aliaga, if he does not participate, at least has complicity with this gang. The Executive is overwhelmed by Congress and is weak. In the face of the very intense protests against Boluarte, these shock groups have come out to present themselves as defenders and almost auxiliaries of the armed forces and the police. It is very possible that before that, some officials have a benevolent or tolerant position, which can very quickly become an accomplice with the neo-fascists”.
The foreign press in the crosshairs
Far-right media spokesmen attack foreign press correspondents for not following the script of the official story of the major local media. The far-right columnist Aldo Mariátegui, who writes with threatening and slanderous shrillness in the newspaper Perú 21, has published the emails of several foreign media correspondents advocating that they be harassed, asking them to write to them complaining about the coverage they do, which denounces human rights violations that the government and its partners hide. Among the correspondents that this far-right character calls to harass are journalists who write for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian and ABC of Spain, who have received threats.
Another far-right spokesperson, host of a program on the Willax television channel, a fake news factory, attacked journalist Mitra Taj, a contributor to The New York Times, on his program, accusing her of promoting violence. “Keep her on file,” she said as a threat, while she showed her photo on her screen.
Speaking to this newspaper, Mitra Taj said that “It is rare that they name you on a television program with your photo as they have done in Willax. They attack us because we have a focus on human rights issues, the deaths that have occurred and collect testimonies from the relatives of the victims, which has not been seen so much in the major local media. There is a lot of resistance to focusing on the deaths and turning the page, and that the investigations come to nothing.
In protest rallies, police have attacked journalists from foreign and alternative media. During a demonstration in Puno, photographer Aldair Mejía from the EFE news agency was injured when a police officer fired a load of pellets into his leg after he identified himself. The correspondent for ABC from Spain, Paola Ugaz, was beaten against a wall by a police officer during a demonstration in Lima, after having identified herself. Freelance photographer Walter Hupiu and reporters from the online outlet Wayka were beaten by the police while covering the protests in the capital.
In dialogue with Página/12, Zuliana Lainez, president of the National Association of Journalists declared: “when there were cases of journalists from the big media in Lima attacked by protesters, President Boluarte came out to show solidarity with them and say that for the government , it was important to guarantee journalistic activity. But about the very serious attacks by the police against journalists from the foreign, alternative or independent press, she has not said a word. On the contrary, she talks about the immaculate police. There is no condemnation by the authorities of these attacks, which reveals that they are not isolated events”. Unions of journalists, human rights organizations, the US, UK and Canadian embassies expressed their concern and condemnation of the threats and acts of violence against journalists.