Revoking Fujimori's pardon violates human rights, activists warn

Lima, 17 Mar The ruling of the Constitutional Court (TC) of Peru in favor of the release of former President Alberto Fujimori sparked a wave of outrage among the country's activists, who consider it a dangerous precedent for violating human rights, and hope that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court of Human Rights) leave it without effect. “It's very sad and frustrating for the victims, the families and the country. It is a very outrageous and very dangerous measure because there is a setback in the court's line of argument,” Jannie Dador, executive secretary of the National Human Rights Coordinator (Cnddhh), told Efe. Dador added that this “attack on democratic institutions” in Peru is “contrary to internal norms and human rights standards” and assured that spontaneous mobilizations are taking place in different parts of the country, including Lima. “Our hopes are placed on the Inter-American Court,” explained the CNDDHH secretary, who along with five other organizations sent a series of petitions to the autonomous judicial body of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Monday night. In the document, to which Efe has had access, the entities urge the court to issue a resolution providing for the nullity of the Peruvian high court's decision to declare well founded the appeal filed against the sentence that annulled the humanitarian pardon to Fujimori, who at age 83 is serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes of against humanity. “We hope that the court will grant us the hearing we have requested for the Peruvian State to respond to this latest measure that violates the victims' right to justice,” Gloria Cano, the legal officer of the Association for Human Rights (Aprodeh), agreed in statements to Efe. Cano also criticized the fact that the decision of the TC was made outside a public debate, as requested, and that, on the contrary, it was made “with strict secrecy”, also introducing “new circumstances such as those of Alberto Fujimori's current health”. In this regard, Carlos Rivera, lawyer for the victims of the crimes of Barrios Altos (1991) and La Cantuta (1992), for which the former president was convicted, said to Efe that Fujimori's circumstances are “identical to those of 2017 and 2018", when the then-president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, granted him pardon and then the court annulled him for irregularities. “(This) nonsense does not have arguments of a legal or constitutional nature or international law,” added Rivera, who also mentioned the “substantial change” in the composition of the TC, which currently has six members and not the usual seven since September last year, following the death of Judge Carlos Ramos. Even more forceful was former Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez, a lawyer and human rights defender, who said that this court decision “violates the memory and right to justice of the victims of the dictatorship of the 90s.” Through his Twitter account, Vasquez called on the Castillo Government, of which he was part of during the administration of its third cabinet of ministers, to “go immediately” to the Inter-American Court and “ensure that there is no impunity”. In the same vein, former Minister of Culture Gisela Ortiz, sister of one of the victims of the La Cantuta massacre, spoke to the RPP radio station, who also questioned the high court's lack of bias.