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Human Rights Developments
Defending Human Rights
The Role of the International CommunityUnder Peruvian conditions, in which the effectiveness of constitutional watchdog bodies had been severely reduced and the judiciary was only nominally independent, the preventive action of the press, independent judges, lawyers, and nongovernmental human rights groups acquired prime importance in the defense of human rights. Outspoken human rights advocates in each of these groups continued to face intimidation and harassment. In April, Delia Revoredo Marsano, dean of the Lima Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados de Lima), left Peru for Costa Rica, where she and her husband were given political asylum. Revoredo, who was one of the judges impeached and dismissed in 1997 from the Constitutional Court, said she feared for her physical safety after receiving repeated death threats against herself and her family. Following her election as dean, the Lima Bar Association had requested that the National Magistrates’ Council investigate the conduct of several judges, one of the factors that may have prompted the pro-Fujimori Congress to pass a law limiting the council’s powers. Revoredo’s attorney, Heriberto Benítes, received threats in April and July. Authorities initiated an investigation into what appeared to be trumped-up charges of customs and fraud violations committed by Revoredo and Benítez; both had been previously acquitted on the same charges. On August 30, Sofía Macher, executive secretary of the National Coordinating Committee of Human Rights (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, or the Coordinadora), a major nongovernmental human rights umbrella group, received death threats. An anonymous caller telephoned the Coordinadora’s watchman and told him to “tell Sofia that we are going to kill her. Tell her to shut up.” According to the Coordinadora, the caller complained about its public support for the referendum campaign on Fujimori’s expected third bid for the presidency. |
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