Nov 02, 2006Articles: NEW ANTI-GAY CRACKDOWN IN PERU
By VZ
A massive and violent October 13 police raid on a lesbian bar in Lima, Peru, signaled a stepped-up campaign of repression of gays, lesbians, and the transgendered in advance of coming municipal elections in that nation's capital. Local gay activists attributed this latest police raid to Lima's approaching city elections, in which candidates are "looking for an opportunity create a law and order image for themselves to help their re-election," according to a statement by the LGBT group Raiz Diversidad Sexual (RDS, or Root of Sexual Diversity). The fact that reporters from more than one of Lima's TV stations accompanied the police raid in order to film it lends credence to the thesis of a baldly political motivation for the crackdown.
