Protesters block a highway to Lima to demand early elections and the release of former president Pedro Castillo /
The new president prohibits the use of lethal weapons by the Police after rising to seven dead protesters and 130 injured agents
The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, affirmed this Tuesday that her government will evaluate declaring a state of emergency “at the national level” in the face of the protests that have shaken the country since last Wednesday. The mobilizations to demand the urgent holding of elections and the release of ex-president Pedro Castillo after his failed self-coup have already left seven protesters dead and 130 agents injured.
The state of emergency currently only affects the Apurimac region, the epicenter of the protests, and where six of the victims have been registered, including two minors, aged 15 and 16. The other death occurred in Arequipa.
Given the worsening of the violence, the Head of State ordered the agents not to use “not even a lethal weapon” and demanded that those who have used them be identified. «I have given instructions to the Police not to use any lethal weapon, not even rubber pellets. I have given the necessary instructions to the Ministry of the Interior to identify the people who have used these weapons that have harmed our sisters and brothers. As soon as it is done, the weight of the corresponding law will be falling », she declared.
The general of the National Police of Peru, Víctor Zanabria, has justified this Tuesday that the acts of violence directed towards the agents “increase the risks and possibly death.” “We have ownership of the use of force,” he said, although he announced that they will begin to use rubber bullets.
Castillo, who is serving seven days in provisional prison, assured, for his part, this Tuesday that he will “never” resign from his position. Meanwhile, the Permanent Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Peru rejected the appeal filed by the legal team of the deposed president to annul his detention. Judge César San Martín said that the leftist leader faces a crime punishable by between 5 and 10 years in prison, and that what was raised by the Prosecutor’s Office is “sufficient” to be prosecuted for attempted rebellion or conspiracy.
The Supreme Court’s pronouncement took place hours after Castillo, through his Twitter profile, described his detention as “unfair and arbitrary” and showed his gratitude to those sectors of the population that have shown his support in recent days.
Aware of the growing scope of the protests, Boluarte advanced this Tuesday that he will meet with the Constitution Commission of Congress to seek to “shorten the deadlines” for the holding of general elections, after the day before he proposed that they be brought forward to April 2024.
In the same way, she considered that her predecessor in office, Pedro Castillo, has been manipulated to label her as “usupardora”. «I know him, we have talked several times, many times we have hugged and cried, I do not think that these words that are coming out on Twitter are from him. They are using it, they continue to manipulate it,” she said in a statement to the press.