Nine UN special rapporteurs warn Fujimori's emergency-powers request could harm human rights

Nine United Nations special rapporteurs — including Astrid Puentes Riaño, Elisa Morgera, Sofía Monsalve Suárez, Leopoldo Maldonado Gutiérrez, Gina Romero, Andrea Bolaños Vargas, Albert K. Barume, Bethanie Margaret Carney Almroth and Pedro Arrojo-Agudo — sent a formal communication to the Peruvian state warning that the Executive's 66-item, 120-day legislative-powers request 'podría tener un serio impacto en los derechos humanos.' They singled out proposed automatic ('positive') administrative silence on environmental permits, an expanded role for the Armed Forces in policing protests, cellphone-tracking measures, and a broadened definition of terrorism, warning these could disproportionately affect indigenous and rural communities and recalling past protester deaths and a UN report documenting chemical-agent projectiles fired from helicopters. Peru's permanent mission in Geneva responded on September 17 that the concerns were premature since the request remained under review by Congress's Constitution Committee, without addressing the rapporteurs' specific questions on environmental silence, military use, or surveillance.