PERU: Three thousand Peruvians march through Lima to demand the death penalty for a variety of crimes

Record ID: 601430

  • Title: PERU: Three thousand Peruvians march through Lima to demand the death penalty for a variety of crimes
  • Date: 20th January 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNIDENTIFIED VIOLENCE VICTIM, SAYING: "We go to the streets to fight for the death penalty to be applied to terrorists and also rapists."
  • Embargoed: 4th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Peru
  • Country: Peru
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9O8HQPNCFYHQJ4EPJ5U6WFR2J
  • Story Text: Carrying portraits of relatives killed by Maoist rebels years ago, thousands of Peruvians marched in the capital Lima on Friday (January 19) in support of death penalty proposed by President Alan Garcia but opposed by Congress.
    Public demonstrations are normally banned in the city centre, but Garcia received representatives of the marchers and then spoke to the crowd of some 3,000 from the staircase of his palace, a portrait of a victim pinned to his suit.
    Garcia's death penalty proposals for terrorists and child rapists were part of campaign pledges that won him last year's election in the Andean country.
    "We're convinced-- not because we like pain, not as an act of vengeance-- that the maximum sanction is necessary for those who assassinate police officers, aviators, soldiers, teachers, authorities," Garcia said. "We need the maximum sanction for those who rape children."
    The crowd chanted "death penalty" and "justice".
    Many people in Peru still have painful memories of deadly bombings and raids by Maoist rebels between 1980 and 1998.
    About 69,000 Peruvians were killed or disappeared during those years. Several thousand leftist rebels have been sentenced to long prison terms for terrorism.
    Despite resistance in Congress, which earlier this month voted down his bill that would have imposed death penalty, Garcia proposed to change the constitution to allow referendums on the issue. Under his proposal, the referendum would also simultaneously survey Peruvians on whether they want death penalty.
    He said on Friday 85 percent of Peruvian households supported death penalty for terrorists and child rapists.
    Capital punishment for terrorists is permitted under Peru 's 1993 constitution. But the penal code does not allow it under any circumstance and Garcia wants to add the capital punishment to the penal code.
    Congress has argued that approving capital punishment would breach the American Convention on Human Rights, which Peru has signed. It says the signatories cannot restore the death penalty or apply it more widely.
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