Peru

The International Secretariat of Amnesty International publishes its own website, with country specific news and campaigns. Do check out the Peru page

Amnesty’s 2024 report on Peru (published April 2025)

This report highlights that investigations continued into deaths during protests in 2022 and 2023. Bills before Congress threatened to restrict civil society. Wildfires affected large areas causing death and destruction. Human rights defenders remained at risk, particularly Indigenous leaders, and protection mechanisms were lacking. Public health facilities were inadequate and people increasingly used private services at their own expense.

LGBTI rights were overlooked and “transsexuality” was declared a “mental disorder”. Only therapeutic abortion was legal and access to it was inadequate. Lawmakers proposed the elimination of comprehensive sex education. Sexual and gender-based violence remained widespread. Actual and proposed changes to legislation risked impunity for historic crimes against humanity. Authorities continued to expel refugees and migrants, and a resolution made access to visas for Venezuelans and others more difficult.

Significant Events from Newsletters 2025

July 2025

Amnesty has strongly criticised a new bill, approved by Congress on the first vote, which proposes granting amnesty to members of the Armed Forces, the Police, members of self-defense committees and State officials who have not received a final sentence in “cases related to the fight against terrorism in the period 1980-2000”.  The bill also establishes a “humanitarian amnesty” for people over 70 years of age who have a final sentence with the quality of res judicata or are in the process of serving a sentence.  Amnesty has stated that the approval of the bill violates and jeopardises access to justice, truth and reparation for thousands of victims and their families, as it puts a stop to the ongoing criminal action against alleged perpetrators of crimes under international law and spares punishment for those who have been found responsible for crimes such as extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture and sexual violence.

June 2025

The Inter-American Court for Human Rights (IACHR) is hearing the case of a forced sterilisation carried out in Peru in the 1990s.  Demus, a Peruvian NGO for women’s rights, presented the case of Celia Ramos to the IACHR in 2010. Eleven years later, an IACHR report declared that the Peruvian state was responsible for the violation of Ramos’s rights and recommended the adoption of measures of reparation and non-repetition.  However, as Peru made no progress in complying with the recommendations, the commission sent the case to the Inter-American court in June 2023.  Celia Cruz died in 1997, 19 days after surgery for a tubal ligation caused respiratory failure. She was “harassed” into accepting the procedure, which was part of a nationwide family planning programme.  While this is the first case of a forced sterilisation in Peru to reach the inter-American court, the Celia Ramos case is representative of thousands of others. 

May 2025

Amnesty has called on the Peruvian authorities to repeal a recent amendment to a law which, it says, violates freedom of expression, freedom of association and access to justice for hundreds of victims in Peru. The amendment, which relates to the functions of the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI), strengthens APCI’s control over the work of civil society organisations, leaving the door open to arbitrary decisions, discretionality and the censoring of voices that are critical of and inconvenient for those in power, while weakening State accountability.

April 2025

Amnesty has issued a new Urgent Action calling on the President not to enact amendments to a law passed by the Congress on 12 March that would allow undue control over the activities of civil society organisations in Peru which receive international development funding, thereby opening the door to unjustified restrictions, arbitrariness and censorship.  Amnesty stated that the amendments, if enacted, would violate the rights to freedom of association and expression and undermine civic space in Peru.

January 2025

Amnesty has published the stories of four of the survivors of the repression of the protests that took place in different regions of Peru between December 2022 and March 2023, highlighting how the authorities have failed to ensure their health and recovery.  1,400 people were injured in different regions of Peru by bullets, pellets, and tear gas fired by the police and the army during the protests.

Significant Events from Newsletters 2024

December 2024

As foreshadowed in our November newsletter, two Peruvian Human Rights Defenders visited the UK from 10-13 November to raise international pressure in the search for justice for those who were killed or seriously injured during the repression of protests in Peru in 2022-2023.  Yovana Mendoza Huarancca, Vice-President of the Ayacucho Victims Association, and Mario Iquita Chambi, Representative of the Juliaca Victims Association, were accompanied by Vanessa Cuentas Advocacy Officer at AI Peru and the visit was jointly organised with our friends at the Peru Support Group (PSG).

The programme included a meeting with officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, an event in Parliament chaired by PSG president Lord Alderdice and an event at the Human Rights Action Centre (HRAC).  Among the attendees at the latter was the new minister with responsibility for Latin America at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Baroness Chapman.  She thanked Yovanna and Mario for their testimonies, their strength and their bravery in sharing their stories.  Both Foreign Office representatives and parliamentarians said they would be raising their concerns about the slow progress in the investigations with their Peruvian counterparts.

The delegation went on from London to Spain to meet the Spanish foreign minister and to Geneva to address diplomatic representatives to the UN and UN human rights experts.

You can still sign our petition here.  You can watch a recording of the event at HRAC here.

September 2024

Following the July publication of Amnesty’s report Who Called On The Shots?, there have been important developments in initiating criminal proceedings against the authorities allegedly responsible for the serious human rights violations committed during the 2022-23 protests, including top-ranking police and military officials and high-level civilian officials.  These include formalised criminal proceedings against the former Commander General of the Peruvian National Police and a  constitutional complaint against President Dina Boluarte and several former ministers.

August 2024

Amnesty has launched a new report, Who Called the Shots? Chain of Command Responsibility for Killings and Injuries in Protests in Peru, into responsibility for one of the gravest episodes of widespread human rights violations in Peru’s recent history, when 50 civilians and one policeman were killed and over 1,400 injured during protests between December 2022 and March 2023.  The report identifies key decisions made by President Boluarte,in her capacity as commander-in-chief of Peru’s armed forces and police, that merit prosecutors evaluating her individual criminal responsibility in their investigations. You can still sign the petition here.

July 2024

Watch out for a new Amnesty report this month focusing on demanding justice and accountability for the victims of the military and police repression of the 2022/23 protests.  Meanwhile The International Federation for Human Rights and Peru’s Association for Human Rights have made a submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing Peru’s President Dina Boluarte and members of her government of crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths of 49 people during the protests.  It has called on the ICC to open a preliminary examination against Boluarte and members of her government regarding the allegations.

June 2024

Human Rights Watch have reported that, on 10 May, the Peruvian government published a presidential decree classifying trans identities as mental health conditions in the country’s Essential Health Insurance Plan, which lists insurable health conditions for insurance policies. The Health Ministry has since affirmed that it does not view LGBT identities as “illnesses,” but the decree remains in place despite heavy criticism from Peruvian human rights organizations and activists.

Peru currently does not allow same-sex couples to marry or enter into civil unions, does not have a procedure for trans people to change their documents to reflect their gender identity, and does not have civil laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people.

February 2024

The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples has warned that changes to Peru’s Forestry and Wildlife Law could legalise and encourage the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples from their lands and threaten their physical and cultural survival.  The revised law permits the clearing of forested lands for agricultural purposes or other economic activities without requiring consideration of the existing forest ecosystems.  The law explicitly mentions native and peasant communities and Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation but has not gone through a consultation process with a view to obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of these Peoples.