Reform of Peru’s anti-terrorism laws under consideration

In view of the wave of violence that has plunged Peru into an atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, congressmen from different parties are evaluating the updating of anti-terrorism laws to include attacks on public and private properties within the legislation.

According to the newspaper Perú 21, legislators Alejandro Muñante (Renovación Popular), Alejandro Cavero (Avanza País), as well as others from different parties, are evaluating the feasibility of updating Decree-Law No. 25475.

It stipulates prison sentences for those who create an atmosphere of anxiety, alarm, or fear in the population; carry out acts against life and health; and attack infrastructure that provides basic services.

In this line, Muñante indicated that the attack on public and private infrastructure could be stipulated as a terrorist act as long as it has a political purpose.

“If an attack is made against the infrastructure to impose a new political regime when there is a political purpose of overthrowing the regime to install another one, we are talking about terrorism; under these parameters, modifications can be made”, he said in a conversation with the newspaper.

The also third vice-president of Congress said that another way could be to repeal the current law and design a new regulation under the present reality.

On the other hand, Cavero said that damaging public institutions to force the State to make “political and ideological ” decisions can be considered terrorist actions.

“Evidently, the forms and ways of modern terrorism have changed, a terrorist does not necessarily have to belong to a group, and in that sense, the law needs to be updated; damaging public and private property generate terror”, he alleged.

He also said that he would talk with his colleague and president of the Defense Committee, Diego Bazán, to discuss this issue.

MOBS ATTACKED 18 TIMES THE AIRPORTS OF FIVE PERUVIAN CITIES

Since the outbreak of the revolts stirred up by the left against the government of Dina Boluarte, at least 18 hostile actions and invasion attempts have been registered by mobs at the airports of Apurímac, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cusco, and Puno.

All these regions are located in the Peruvian south, an electoral stronghold of the coup leader Pedro Castillo, who is today in preventive prison, being investigated for the alleged crimes of rebellion and conspiracy.

According to official information published this Sunday by El Comercio, up to January 24, there were seven violent incursions at the international airport of Puno; four at the one in Cusco; four in Arequipa; two in Ayacucho; and one in Apurimac.

The first attack on an air terminal located in the south of the Andean country occurred on Sunday, December 11, last year, four days after Congress ousted Castillo following his failed coup attempt.

On that occasion, hundreds of people entered the airport in Andahuaylas, in the Andean region of Apurimac, and set fire to part of its facilities. Then, two people were reported dead, among them a minor.

The last confrontation between demonstrators and Peruvian National Police officers took place last Tuesday, January 24, in Juliaca, in the border region of Puno, near the perimeter of the Inca Manco Capac international airport.

JAIL FOR THOSE ACCUSED OF TERRORISM APOLOGY

In a pre-trial hearing, the First National Collegiate Criminal Court sentenced Julián Cuba Jurado and Richard Alex Cornejo Callas to eight years of imprisonment for the crime of apology of a person convicted of terrorism.

Cuba Jurado, on September 12, 2021, in his Facebook account, made a publication referring to Abimael Guzmán Reinoso, in his condition of the leader of the terrorist organization Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL).

In the said publication, according to the sentence, he exalted, justified, and praised the terrorist criminal.

On the other hand, Cornejo Callas was charged that, on February 7, 2021, also using his Facebook account, he published a video where he justified the terrorist actions developed by the criminal Abimael Guzmán.

It should be recalled that on January 18 of this year, the Fourth National Collegiate Criminal Court convicted Rodrigo Benjamín Benites Silva for justifying a convicted terrorist (Abimael Guzmán Reinoso) through social networks.

With information from LGI

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