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Peruvian
writer released
(December 6, 2000)
A Peruvian writer and former opposition member of congress was
released from prison after serving eight years in prison, the
writers group International P.E.N. announced today.
Yehude Simon Munaro,
the former director of Cambio magazine, was released on December
2 from Castro Castro prison in Lima, Peru's capital. Munaro was
arrested on June 11, 1992 and charged with supporting terrorism
through his writing in Cambio. He was convicted and sentenced
to 20 years in prison.
The release came as
a direct result of the replacement last month of President Alberto
Fujimori, who refused to sign papers releasing Munaro. Fujimori
left Peru amid a scandal that started after a videotape showed
intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos allegedly bribing an opposition
member of Parliament to support Fujimori's government. After Fujimori
left Peru for Japan and announced his resignation on November
20, Peru's Congress declared him morally unfit for office and
replaced him with Valentin Paniagua, the former head of the Congress.
Newly appointed Justice
Minister Diego García Sayán was quoted as saying the
release was not so much a favor as an act of justice.
Journalists still
in prison
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WHAT YOU CAN
DO
Five
journalists are serving time in Peruvian prisons: Antero
Gargurevich Oliva, Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, Hermes Rivera
Guerrero, Javier Tuanama Valera, and Pedro Carranza Ugaz.
International
P.E.N recommends that you send appeals encouraging the Peruvian
authorities to release all five immediately pending reviews
of their respective cases to:
Dr.
Valentín Paniagua Corazao
Presidente de la República Palacio de Gobierno
Tel./Fax: +(51-1) 426-6770, 426-6535, 427-6722
Diego
García Sayán Larrabure.
Ministro de Justicia
Fax: +(51-1) 422-3577
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However, five other
journalists remain in jail in Peru: Antero Gargurevich Oliva,
Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, Hermes Rivera Guerrero, Javier Tuanama
Valera and Pedro Carranza Ugaz.
Gargurevich and Jara
Berrospi had begun a hunger strike on
September 26 to protest "the lack of political will" of Fujimori's
government to resolve their cases. Gargurevich was sentenced in
1994 to 12 years' imprisonment on charges of belonging to a support
group responsible for formulating ideology for the leftist Shining
Path (Sendero Luminoso) movement. Jara Berrospi was given a 20-year
sentence for collaboration with the Shining Path on the basis
of some maps he possessed showing the burial place of the victims
of a massacre carried out by the Peruvian army. Both men were
tried by so-called "faceless judges" (their faces were covered
to protect their identity from rebels), notorious for their propensity
to convict on the flimsiest of evidence. P.E.N. believes that
both men have stopped their hunger strikes.
On leaving prison,
Simon Munaro — an honorary member of the Canadian, English,
and Swedish branches of P.E.N. — thanked all those who had
campaigned on his behalf but added, "I cannot be completely happy
when I know that this very prison still holds many innocent people,
people who deserve a chance. I cannot sleep soundly while they
unjustly serve out their sentences."
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