The president of Peru, the leftist Pedro Castillo, announced this Tuesday afternoon the early end of the daytime curfew that he had decreed hours earlier in Lima and the neighboring port of Callao to contain protests.
“From the moment we are going to leave this immobility without effect [toque de queda]. It is up to the Peruvian people to call for calm,” said Castillo, sitting next to the president of Congress, the opposition María del Carmen Alva.
Military and police patrols guarded the half-empty streets of Lima on Tuesday, enforcing the daytime curfew decreed by Castillo, which was repudiated by broad sectors of the population, including leftist leaders.
“The measures that are taken, like the ones that were taken yesterday [lunes]They are not to go against the people, but to protect the lives of compatriots,” said Castillo, who is facing the first protest of his government, which began eight months ago.
The announcement of the end of the curfew, which was to last until midnight, was greeted with cheers by hundreds of protesters gathered near the Congress building and in other parts of Lima, saying they had shaken hands with the president, journalists from the AFP.
Shops were closed, classes suspended and public transport was almost absent in the capital and the neighboring port of Callao, where 10 million people live.
The people of Lima were surprised by the measure, announced around midnight on Monday by Castillo on television, since the disturbances that day had been focused and the most serious took place in the provinces, not in the capital.
