Protesters in Peru Demand Fujimori 'Be Brought to Justice'

Peruvians will unite for the fourth round of protests in the country as students, workers, and human rights activists continue to call for justice and the observance of the established law in the case of former president Alberto Fujimori.

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Citizens in Lima, Tacna, Puno Moquegua Cusco, Arequipa, Apurimac, Madre de Dios and other cities are expected to march in unison, lead by various social groups such as the National Fighting Committee, the General Confederation of Workers of Per, CGTP, the Unitary Workers Confederation, CUT, and the National Agrarian Confederation.

Some students are expected to leave classes as they exit more than 10 of the capital’s universities to join the protesters and family members of thousands of victims cut down and left scarred by the dictator-like administration of former president Fujimori.

"We do not accept that in our country criminals and murderers are freed, we do not accept that the corrupt ones make pacts of impunity to evade justice, nor that they continue negotiating under the table to continue plundering our country," said Veronika Mendoza, head of the New Peru Movement, MNP, in a Twitter video.

A protester holds a sign denouncing the 300,000 sterilizations which were forced on Indigenous women from 1996-2000.

Peruvians were enraged after the official pardon of the ex-president was announced and the thousands of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, forced sterilizations, and kidnappings were swept away along with his prison sentence.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori on December 24, alleging humanitarian reasons due to his state of health, and freed him from completing his 25-year sentence for qualified homicide, aggravated kidnapping and acts of corruption.

Kuczynski he medical reasons such as low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat.

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The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, IACHR, has contested the pardon and will hold a hearing on Feb. 2 to judge whether the Peruvian government is observing Fujimori’s indictment. The IACHR said the release failed to meet the “fundamental legal requirements” and was not orchestrated by “an independent, transparent or legal evaluation committee.”

The presidential pardon came just after Congress narrowly voted to not impeach Kuczynski for allegedly receiving nearly US$800,000 in kickbacks from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. The pardon and failed impeachment are widely seen as a political maneuver by Fujimori’s son, Kenji, himself a current Congress member, to salvage Kuczynski so the president could pardon his father in return.