The Network Academics under Threat expresses its deep rejection and concern for the serious situation of violence that Peru is facing and that has already caused the death of more than 50 people and more than 1100 injured in different parts of the country. In this context, on 21 January in Lima, police forces violently entered the campus of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM), the oldest university in Peru, with armored tanks, thus violating both university autonomy and the right to protest.
Without judicial authorization, the security forces entered by force with military tanks, violently evicting and detaining hundreds of students as well as other demonstrators from the interior of the country who had arrived in Lima and were on the university campus.
As established in various international norms, the intervention of State security forces in academic institutions violates their autonomy and has a damaging effect on the academic community. As stated in Principle VI of the Inter-American Principles on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy, established by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2021: “States may not invoke the existence of exceptional situations as a means of suppressing or denying, denaturalizing or depriving of real content academic freedom, university autonomy or, in general, the rights guaranteed by the American Convention on Human Rights”.
In this context, the Network Academics under Threat expresses its solidarity with the academic community and the Peruvian people. Likewise, the Network strongly rejects the persecution and police repression of students, as well as other demonstrators, and the deprivation of their right to demonstrate through peaceful protest. Violent repression and human rights violations are an illegitimate means of responding to the demands of the population.