On December 2, 74 people were arrested in the so-called Olimpo operation in Peru for trumped-up charges after exercising their rights to freedom of expression, opinion, assembly, and organization by calling for a new constitution through a constituent assembly. Below is the condemnation statement of the family members of the detainees. Let us show our solidarity with the 74 detainees and the Peruvian people by sharing information about the Olimpo operation to our networks and social media pages and by condemning this fascist attack.
To know more about the Olimpo operation, you may also access these documents:
On the Olimpo operation
Urgent Letter to Judge Rafael Martín Martínez Vargas
WE DEMAND IMMEDIATE FREEDOM FOR ALL THE DETAINEES OF THE OLIMPO OPERATION! DOWN WITH THE POLITICAL PERSECUTION FOR REASONS OF IDEAS!
We the family members of more than 74 detainees of the so-called “Olimpo” operation express our rejection, and a resounding repudiation of this illegal, arbitrary, and abusive operation directed by the political police of Peru (DIRCOTE) carried out at dawn on December 2nd. They raided 94 houses of which they have broken doors and windows lifting minors who were spending the night with their parents.
They beat family mothers for demanding a court order for such an outrage, detaining a nursing mother together with her baby, and harassing her by taking the minor to INABIF. This along with crackling the health of the elderly, arresting lawyers to deny all kinds of legal defense, and physically and psychologically mistreating all detainees, and their families.
This execrable fact unfolds in the midst of the greatest generalized crisis in Peruvian society in which the struggles and compromises of those who rule our country focus on their desire to have control of the State, while they remove generals of high position in the police.
Thus far we already have 2 former interior ministers and a new one within the government of Francisco Sagasti, while the Peruvian people in the north, the central region, and the south strongly express their rejection of this system of capitalist exploitation, and oppression, and fight for a new constitution through a constituent assembly.
This is a fact that at all costs they want to contain with anxiety raising a possible “reappearance” of what’s called “terrorism” exercising accusations and defamations against our family members who are mothers, nursing mothers, lawyers, young students, workers, teachers, laborers, artists, elderly adults with pre-existing diseases staining honors and stigmatizing them for exercising the right to freedom of expression and opinion protected in the Political Constitution of Peru in chapter 1, Fundamental rights of the person, article 3 that details the following:
“To freedom of conscience and religion, individually or in association. There is no persecution because of ideas or beliefs. There is no crime of opinion. The public exercise of all confessions is free as long as it does not offend morals or alter public order.
As family members we ask ourselves what morality and what public order have our detained family members offended if those who govern our country have focused on fights and shady deals throughout this pandemic increasing the external debt with the international economic organizations for up to 100 years, generating massive unemployment with the perfect suspension of work and benefiting the big capitalists with millions of soles in Peru.
This, in addition to the grave acts of corruption. 3 presidents in a week! Who alters public order? Not our family members. It is the Peruvian State and its ruling class. Who has committed murder, repression with pellets, and political persecution? Not our family members. The Armed Forces, the national police and their special group Terna, an institution that represents and defends all this rot. Who murdered Inti, Bryan, and Jorge? Not our family members. It was the State and its police institution.
Our family members have not committed any crime. They have exercised their fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, opinion, assembly, and organization that the constitution itself guarantees all Peruvians. And they have consistently proposed to fight for a new constitution with the people and for the people through a constituent assembly.
We also denounce that after 36 hours of detention, and at our request, the family members were able to enter their lawyers, as well as the entering of non-perishable food and change clothes. However, until today we have no information on the total number of detainees. Thus, we demand that all Human Rights organizations, Amnesty International, and Red Cross intervene to enter this center of torture and verify the physical and emotional health situation of our family members as preliminary detainees. Likewise, we want to mention that all these facts bring to the fore the execution of the enemy’s criminal law against our family members claiming “imminent danger”, violating their fundamental rights as well as due process, the right to defense, and the presumption of innocence.
We also demand the cessation of the campaign of stigmatization and persecution by the State and the DIRCOTE against our family members for reasons of ideas. Since last weekend we have witnessed tendentious and phantasmagorical reports in which only the representative of the National Police of Peru, Gral. Oscar Arriola, head of the DIRCOTE states the following:
“We cannot afford to enter the bicentennial with people who still HAVE IN THEIR MIND Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Gonzalo Thought under any point of view.”
Thus, what is demonstrated by the head of the political police himself is that it is about the persecution of ideas, thus prescribing freedom of thought a step away from the bicentennial pretending to imprison our family members when they have not committed any crime. We categorically reject these accusations and say:
OUR FAMILY MEMBERS ARE NOT TERRORISTS!
Furthermore, the journalistic media have only given space to DIRCOTE executives and pseudo analysts. And where is the testimony of us family members? We well know that the exercise of journalistic truthfulness relies on the rigor of the participation of all those mentioned in said reports, and until today no media receives our right to reply. We have the right to be interviewed and defend our family members.
For all the above, the family members of the detainees of the so-called Olimpo operation demand the immediate freedom of our relatives.
IMMEDIATE FREEDOM OF THE DETAINEES OF THE OLIMPO OPERATION!
OUR FAMILY MEMBERS ARE NOT TERRORISTS!
FIGHTING FOR A NEW CONSTITUTION IS NOT A CRIME!
THINKING DIFFERENTLY IS NOT A CRIME, NEITHER ARE ORGANIZING AND MEETING!
Peru. December 2020
COMMITTEE OF THE FAMILY MEMBERS OF THE ARRESTED OF THE OLIMPO OPERATION