Speaking in Washington DC on 3 December in public hearings convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Peruvian human rights experts criticised the Kuczynski government for not bringing an immediate end to contracts by which the police provide security services for mining companies.

The director of the Fundación Ecuméncia para el Desarrollo y la Paz (Fedepaz), David Velasco, said that the practice, in his opinion, clashed both with the Peruvian constitution and the American Convention. “It is not possible that public officials, using public resources and the authority that the law invests in them, to provide private security to individual companies in order to repress social protest” he said.

On the question of criminalising protest, Velasco argued that this had become increasingly problematic during the Humala administration and that there were no signs of any change under the present one. He said that the existing legislation in Peru on this violated the norms of the American Convention with respect to people’s personal integrity and freedom.

http://larepublica.pe/politica/827412-organismos-de-ddhh-denuncian-que-sigue-vigentes-convenios-privados-de-seguridad-con-empresas-extractivas