The Peruvian Defense Minister, Luis Alberto Otarola, announced this Wednesday that the Government has decreed a state of emergency throughout the Peruvian territory, after riots have spread throughout the country in recent hours. Clashes between protesters and police have already caused eight deaths.
At the same time, the former Peruvian president, Pedro Castillo, took it for granted yesterday that he would be released from prison this Wednesday, after a week of his imprisonment for the self-coup attempt. However, justice has other plans for the leftist leader: the Prosecutor’s Office asks to extend his preventive detention for another 18 months, which could be confirmed tomorrow, Thursday, after a hearing that seems to be aimed at keeping the ex-president locked up, despite the fact that the riots They continue to spread throughout Peru and have already left eight dead. The Prosecutor’s Office also requests 18 months of provisional prison for former Prime Minister Aníbal Torres, accused of rebellion the same as Castillo.
While the court makes the decision – initially scheduled for this Wednesday, but postponed due to complaints from Castillo’s lawyers – the imprisonment will be extended for 48 hours, until Friday. Last week, after being arrested after a speech in which he decreed the frustrated dissolution of Congress and suspended the democratic order, a court decreed seven days in prison against Castillo, who since then has been serving in the prison of the Directorate of Special Operations of the Police (Diroes), where the former dictator Alberto Fujimori is also located.
One of Castillo’s lawyers, Ronald Atencio, denounced the urgency of the judicial summons to keep the former president in prison. The Prosecutor’s Office alleges that there is a risk of flight, since Castillo came to request political asylum from Mexico, to whose embassy in Lima he was going when he was arrested last Wednesday. “All the processes are being violated,” declared Atencio, when today he was not allowed to visit Castillo in the Diroes.
For her part, President Dina Boluarte said this Wednesday that she was willing to advance the general elections to December 2023. A week ago, upon taking office before Congress, the new president assured that the five-year presidential term would end, which ends in in 2026. A few days later, with protests already throughout the country and several deaths, Boluarte proposed bringing the elections forward to April 2024.
“Let’s keep calm, Peru cannot overflow with blood, we have already lived through that experience in the eighties, in the nineties, we do not want to return to that painful history that has marked the lives and faces of thousands and thousands of Peruvians” , declared Boluarte when announcing his proposal to advance the elections to the end of next year. “I call on Peru in general to remain calm,” he added.
But calm does not reach Peru. Since the weekend, there have been constant riots in 13 of Peru’s 24 departments, mainly those where electoral support for Castillo in last year’s elections was strong. There are dozens of roadblocks throughout the country and in Lima the shortage of some products has already begun to be noticed.
This Wednesday, the tension is being felt in the Cuzco region, where the authorities have closed the airport of the homonymous capital, after the occupation by protesters. Cuzco is one of the main tourist destinations in Peru, as it is the entrance to Machu Picchu. The train that connects Cuzco with the Inca citadel was also suspended.
