Peru's President Grants Pardon to Ex-Dictator Fujimori

Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted pardon on Sunday to the former dictator Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights crimes during his administrations (1990-2000).

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The decision followed an announcement by Fujimori's private doctor that he had been transferred Saturday to an intensive care unit of Lima because of symptoms of hypotension and arrhythmia.

In July, a court rejected efforts by Fujimori's family to have him freed. In 2013, the government of former President Ollanta Humala had denied humanitarian pardon to Fujimori because a medical report determined he did not meet the conditions.

Likewise, in 2016, requests by Keiko to review her father's case were also denied.

Faced with the prospect of Fujimori's release, hundreds of Peruvian women repeatedly took to the streets in recent months as a reminder that he still stands accused of the mass sterilization of poor, rural, indigenous women during his time in office via a controversial health program.

The National Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program has long been denounced by human rights organizations as a thinly disguised means of population control within impoverished communities.