A year after the height of a protest wave [7] that swept Peru, demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, we finally see an initial step toward justice for the some 50 slain by security forces in the repression unleashed by her regime. On Jan. 6, Judicial Power, Peru's justice department, ordered the "preventative detention" of Joe Erik Torres Lovón, an officer of the National Police, as he is investigated in the slaying of a Cuzco youth, Rosalino Florez Valverde, last January. (El País [12])
On the other hand, there is outrage that Luis Flores Solís, a National Police general and a former agent of the elite Special Intelligence Group (GEIN), has been named as the new chief of the Counter-Terrorist Directorate (DIRCOTE [8])—despite the fact that he is under internal investigation by the police force in connection with the killing of protesters in Andahuaylas. (Wayka [10])
Meanwhile, Pedro Castillo, the president whose removal from power [13] and replacement by Boluarte in December 2022 sparked the protest wave, remains imprisoned on pre-trial detention orders. (Al Jazeera [14]) But on Dec. 6, ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year term for corruption and human rights abuses, was released from Lima's Barbadillo prison on order [9] of the Constitutional Tribunal, Peru's highest court. The ruling reinstated a contentious 2017 pardon on supposed humanitarian grounds. The octogenarian former strongman was released in defiance of a 2018 ruling [15] of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). The Inter-American Court ordered Peru Dec. 5 "to refrain from implementing the Constitutional Tribunal's ruling," pending an IACHR review of the pardon.
"Fujimori's release is a slap in the face to victims of atrocities," said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "The [Organization of American States] should examine the release in the context of very serious erosion of the rule of law and the protection of human rights in Peru." (Al Jazeera [16], HRW [17])
