(LIMA, PERU) 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. Dozens of officers from the National Police and from the Serenazgo-a local auxiliary police paid by the municipality of Lima-arrived in a half-dozen pick-up trucks and numerous police cars, cordoned off Calle Manuel Segura in the Lince district, five minutes from downtown Lima, and engaged in a muscular raid on "Avenida 13," a bar frequented in large part by young lesbians. Anyone who did not have an identity card was arrested, and when many young lesbians-panicked by the violent police conduct-refused to leave the bar, they were dragged out and beaten.
