Lawyers for victims of human rights abuses committed during Peru’s decades-long armed conflict have pledged to appeal to international bodies to overturn a law passed by the country’s Congress, which would grant amnesty to prosecuted military and police members, as well as other forces.“We’re not only going to the domestic arena to seek its invalidation, but we’ve already taken some action at the international level,” lawyer Gloria Cano, director of the Pro Human Rights Association, said during a news conference on Thursday.
A congressional commission on Wednesday approved the bill granting amnesty to members of the armed forces, national police and local self-defence committees, said legislator Alejandro Cavero, third vice president of the country’s Congress.
Cano also said her association had already alerted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and planned to go to the United Nations, as well.
After the Peruvian Congress passed the bill, Volker Turk, the UN’s national human rights coordinator, said on X that “impunity does not hide the crime, it magnifies it.”
Amnesty International earlier urged the legislature to side with victims and reject the bill. “The right to justice of thousands of victims of extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture, and sexual violence would be violated,” the rights group said on …
