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Peru says army, police to clear protester roadblocks

Photo: Lucas Aguayo / AFP

January 27 | By AFP | Carlos Mandujano |

The Peruvian government said Thursday that police and soldiers would soon move to dismantle roadblocks on the nation’s highways erected by protesters who have demanded for weeks the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.

The move announced by the defense and interior ministries comes as shortages of basic goods including food and fuel have escalated in the South American country, with freight deliveries to the south compromised.

“The Peruvian national police, with the support of the armed forces, will unblock the national network of highways that have been the subject of a state of emergency,” the ministries said in a joint statement.

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Authorities said that traffic was blocked in eight of Peru’s 25 regions on Thursday, which has also complicated medical treatment in some areas, with doctors unable to access needed medicines.

Protests, which broke out after the ouster and arrest in early December of former president Pedro Castillo, have repeatedly turned violent, with 46 people dying in clashes between security forces and protesters.

The government ministries said the right to protest “does not justify the obstruction of roadways” or trump the rights of people who need chemotherapy or deliveries of oxygen canisters.

It blamed the roadblocks for 10 deaths, including those of several children who did not receive medical care in time.

Protests have been fueled by anger in poor rural regions in the south where inhabitants — mainly Indigenous — felt that Castillo, who has Indigenous roots himself, represented their interests rather than those of the Lima elite.

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Castillo’s ouster followed an attempt by him to dissolve congress and rule by decree, in what appeared to be a bid to avoid an impeachment vote and stave off corruption investigations.

On Thursday, protesters tossed stones and security forces responded with tear gas and rubber bullets in central Lima after hundreds had staged a march against Boluarte, who had been Castillo’s vice president.

‘Unprecedented’ repression

Earlier in the day in the mining town of Juliaca, relatives of those killed in the weeks of protests demanded justice.

Rights organizations have accused the government of repressing protesters and the disproportionate use of force.

“All I ask for please is justice. I am asking them for help because no one is going to bring back my brother,” said a tearful Maria Samillan.

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Her 31-year-old brother Marco Antonio Samillan, a doctor, was killed during protests earlier this month in the southern Andean town. 

On January 9, 18 people were killed after protesters tried to storm the airport. One of the dead was a police officer burnt alive in his vehicle. Marco Antonio was shot dead while trying to save injured protesters.

“Every day I feel that I also died. I cannot live any more,” said Samillan, talking via video from Juliaca at a press conference by a national rights group.

Lawyer Mar Perez accused authorities of extrajudicial killings and claimed security forces used machine guns.

“We are seeing levels of repression that are unprecedented in Peruvian democracy,” Perez told AFP.

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International

Geert Wilders reaches a provisional agreement to form a government in the Netherlands

The leader of the Dutch extreme right, Geert Wilders, reached a “provisional” agreement on Wednesday to form a government with three other center-right parties, which he will now send to the Dutch Parliament for debate, although they have not yet agreed on behalf of the candidate for prime minister.

As announced by Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), there is already a “provisional” agreement with the other three center-right parties: the liberal VVD, the Christian Democrat NSC and the BBB farmers’ party, although there are still disagreements about pensions and “the discussion about who will lead that government will be resumed at a later date” because they have not yet decided on this point.

Wilders won the general elections on November 22, but had to resign his aspiration to the position of prime minister to unblock the dialogue with the other parties.

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International

Diana Boluarte goes to a new interrogation of the Attorney General for the ‘Rolex case’

The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, arrived this Wednesday unexpectedly at the headquarters of the Public Ministry to be interrogated by the interim Attorney General, Juan Carlos Villena, as part of the preliminary investigation opened for the crimes of corruption and bribery by the so-called ‘Rolex case’.

Boluarte arrived at the tax headquarters, in the historic center of Lima, at 9:20 a.m. (14.20 GMT) sheltered by a large police security display and entered aboard an official van with dark moons.

As has happened on previous occasions, the ruler is not expected to offer subsequent statements about this interrogation.

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International

The filmmaker Rasoulof will go to the Cannes Film Festival after fleeing Iran, according to his lawyer

Iranian filmmaker Mohamad Rasoulof, who fled his country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, will go to the Cannes Film Festival to present his film ‘The seed of the sacred fig’, his lawyer Babak Paknia told EFE.
“He (Rasoulof) will participate in Cannes,” Paknia said on Wednesday.

Rasoulof will present his film ‘The seed of the sacred fig’ at the French festival, which is about a judge who deals with the protests unleashed by the death of the young Iranian Mahsa Amini in 2022 after being arrested for not wearing the Islamic veil well.

Some actors of the film, however, will not be able to attend since the Iranian authorities do not allow them to leave the country, according to Paknia, who also stated that they have opened a new judicial case against the director for the film.

“They have opened a new case for this new film,” said Paknia, who did not explain the charges.

Rasoulof announced two days ago that he had fled his country to Europe after being sentenced to eight years in prison, lashes and the confiscation of property for the crime of “collusion with the intention of committing crimes against the security of the country.”

The filmmaker, winner of the Golden Bear of the Berlinale with ‘The Life of Others’ in 2020, a film that deals with the death penalty in the country, has had numerous problems with the country’s authorities and has been sentenced to prison on three occasions.

He was last arrested in July 2022 for criticizing the repression of protests unleashed by the collapse of a building that caused dozens of deaths two years ago and eight months later he was released.

In recent weeks, Iranian courts have multiplied convictions against artists and academics who are critical of the Islamic Republic.

In one of the most noted cases, a revolutionary court sentenced rapper Tomaj Salehi to death for sedition, propaganda against the system and incitement to riots for supporting the protests unleashed by Amini’s death.

In those protests, young Iranians and women called for the end of the Islamic Republic and only disappeared after a repression that caused 500 deaths and the arrest of at least 22,000 people and in which eight demonstrators were executed, one of them in public.

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