Tristan Calvayrac – Crime, Terrorism and the Legitimacy Crisis of Human Rights in Peru

June 24, 2026
Electoral Mural for Keiko Fujimori, projected winner of the 2026 Peruvian Presidential Election

Crime, Terrorism, and State Response

“Hitmen gun down Víctor Hugo Febre, mayor of Veintiséis de Octubre, in Piura; All the details of the massacre that wiped out a family in Piura: hitmen killed four, including a child; They killed him in his sleep, dismembered him and cooked him: the macabre murder of Rudhy Benavides in Cusco.”1 These are all recent Peruvian headlines, referencing crimes occurring since my arrival in Lima in early May. I could have listed countless others in the same short span. They’re shocking, they’re violent, and yet they have become almost normalized as Peru sinks deeper and deeper into a wave of violent crime.

The Peruvian government has failed to adequately address the issue. While the public demands solutions, a trend, as of yet ineffective, has emerged in the state’s legislative and police response: muddling the line between organized crime and terrorism. This has included the designation of Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization, and attempting to pass laws that designate certain conventional criminal offences as “urban terrorism”.2 From this nebulous terror-criminal nexus, the government has justified increasingly authoritarian methods in the fight against rampant criminality, including militarized urban security and various restrictions on due process.3

Domestic and International civil society and human rights organizations have repeatedly flagged the risks of adopting wide definitions of terrorism and basing penal policy on them, deploring them as a grave threat to human rights.4 This political tendency indeed appears particularly concerning in a country where “terruqueo”– the false attribution of terrorist sympathies to political opponents – was a cornerstone of political debate, in the context of Peru’s civil war against Shining Path in the late 20th century.5 However, in modern Peruvian society, these alerts and calls for caution seem to be rejected, not only by the policymakers backing these reforms, but also by the majority of the population. For instance, in a 2023 poll, 60% said that they would support a reduction in crime at the cost of people’s rights.6 Likewise, in a 2025 poll on public perceptions surrounding the current wave of violent crime, 62% said they favour harsh state policies in the fight against crimes even if this creates a risk that certain innocents fall victim to state repression in this context, while only 27% say they want a state that respects human rights even if this creates a risk that certain criminals go free.7

The contrast between experts’ calls for human rights to be respected in cases of state responses to crime, and the apparent public demand for an authoritarian reaction has already attracted much attention in the context of Nayyib Bukele’s crackdown on organized crime in El Salvador. Indeed, academics and human rights advocates frequently condemn the arbitrary mass detentions, suspensions of constitutional rights, and alleged torture of prisoners that have occured as part of his “territorial control plan”.8 In contrast, Bukele’s approval rating in El Salvador has soared to figures most leaders could not dream of, surpassing 94% in 2026, largely in reaction to the massive drop in violent crime that has resulted from his policies.9

The Legitimacy Crisis of “Human Rights” in Carceral and Penal Contexts

This tension suggests that the notion of “human rights” in carceral and penal policy faces somewhat of a legitimacy crisis among the general public in crime-ridden Latin American societies. Advocates repeatedly call for fundamental freedoms and due process to be protected. However, if these polls are to be trusted, a large segment of the public in Peru is at a minimum sceptical of overemphasizing human rights concerns in penal and carceral contexts. This connects to rhetoric from certain politicians that explicitly draws an opposition between the safety of citizens and “human rights.” Carlos Alvarez Loayza, a notable candidate in the 2026 presidential election, stated that he would advance the death penalty “even if that means departing from international law” because “I care more about the lives of citizens than about the human rights of criminals.”10 Additionally, in a 2025 poll, 62% of respondents believed that current laws on crime favour delinquency.11 This all suggests that portions of the public do not perceive “human rights,” at least in the traditional and general sense in the current legal framework, as something that serves the interest of the many when it comes to carceral and penal policy. Rather, they see it as a potential tool used to protect criminals, and allow them to continue terrorising the average citizen with relative impunity.

Part of this legitimacy problem can surely be attributed to hopelessness and fear in the face of the perpetual failure to effectively tackle criminality. In Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, Norbert Lechner explores the connection between fear and authoritarianism in Latin America. He explains how authoritarian responses that promise to restore order are often welcomed by the people, and that authoritarianism and fear of crime exist in a feedback loop that leads to an ever increasing demand for additional security and, in effect, repression.12 These analyses cannot be fully unpacked here, but they highlight the danger posed to democracy by fear.

The idea of non-state groups committing violence against civilians while being defended under the language of “human rights”, as some claim is occurring with organized criminal groups today, has already existed in Peru in the past. During the internal armed conflict in Peru, Shining Path orchestrated the creation of “organismos generados,” civil society organizations meant to engage in legitimate politics while advancing the interests of the terror group. These groups often used the lexicon of human rights in their rhetoric, as well as their names, such as the “Asociación de Abogados Democráticos” [Association of Democratic Lawyers] which focused on defending captured terrorists in the name of democracy and human rights, in the midst of their parent organization engaging in indiscriminate massacres of civilians across the country.13 Moreover, following the end of the conflict and until its dissolution by the state in 2024, the main successor organization to Shining Path, centred on advocating for the release of incarcerated terrorists, was called “Movimiento por la Amnistía y Derechos Fundamentales” [Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights].14 While no evidence indicates that this past experience with senderista “organismos generados” informs current perspectives on crime and human rights, it shows that the connection between the two phenomena, which many Peruvians perceive today, does have some historical reality.

A Different Understanding of Human Rights?

Nayib Bukele, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, when asked about the condemnations of his crackdown by human rights organizations, answered “what about the human right of a woman not to be raped? What about the human right of kids to, you know, play or to be free or to go to the park? And what about the human right to live? […] But no, they were worried about the human rights of the killers.”15 A few punchy lines to repel accusations of abuses which are indeed occurring? Perhaps. But maybe also an illustration of a detachment between the formal definition of “human rights” and what certain members of the public exposed and subjected to violence on a daily basis might prioritize. Do they value “traditional” “human rights”, like due process, or do they prefer what they understand as the “human right” to be free of crime? Bukele’s statement along with the aforementioned Peruvian examples illustrate a feeling that criminals should not be granted certain human rights. This clashes with the pluralistic and universal notion of the concept, underlining a real tension. Certain politicians and parts of the population appear to be favouring what we might understand as an alternative, non-universal, definition of human rights that deprives certain individuals – like criminals – of certain rights – like due process – in order to ensure that other rights, like human security, are prioritized. 

What to make of this debate? My first instinct is to uncritically defend the universal definition of human rights. It is informed by academics who have spent their whole lives studying the topic, it is backed by centuries of political culture, and it is supported by a great variety of civil society organizations in Peru. Taken in abstraction it is morally consistent. However, backers of the alternative restrictive position often attack their opponents as hypocritical external observers, speaking from ivory towers of privilege, criticizing government policies, while never having experienced the state of fear, despair, and apathy inherent in the face of such violence. It is true that some western academics refuse to even engage with the fact that people might support these reforms, remaining dogmatic in their defence of formal and enshrined rights. At the very least a reckoning with the reality of this tension should take place.

Legal pluralism, emphasized in education at McGill, can be easy to accept in theory. However, as I’m learning, it may mean acknowledging the existence of an alternative, non-universal, conception of “human rights” in conflict with the axioms upon which our legal systems are built, which might be more challenging. Such rival conceptions of human rights would likely emerge in Canada too if it were to face a security crisis of similar scale. Refusing to acknowledge this reality is not a solution.

Then what is my role in this as a Canadian studying this on the ground in Lima? At first, I feared sounding like a moralizing Westerner, lecturing a population driven to the brink by violence, on how they should respond to a crisis tearing their communities apart. However, I do not want to fit that stereotype. The best I can do is listen and not lecture. This might seem ironic, as isn’t the principal role of someone studying human rights to denounce instances when they perceive them to have been violated? Perhaps here it is not. 

Tristan Calvayrac

  1.  Luis Páucar, «Sicarios asesinan a balazos a Víctor Hugo Febre, alcalde de Veintiséis de Octubre en Piura: su chofer y seguridad están graves», Infobae Perú, May 21, 2026, https://www.infobae.com/peru/2026/05/21/sicarios-asesinan-a-balazos-victor-hugo-febre-alcalde-de-veintiseis-de-octubre-en-piura/; Analí Espinoza, «Todos los detalles de la masacre que acabó con una familia en Piura: sicarios mataron a cuatro, entre ellos un niño», Infobae Perú, June 5, 2026, https://www.infobae.com/peru/2026/06/05/todos-los-detalles-de-la-masacre-que-acabo-con-una-familia-en-piura-sicarios-mataron-a-cuatro-entre-ellos-un-nino/; Marilyn Corrales Valqui, “Lo mataron mientras dormía, lo descuartizaron y lo cocinaron con verduras: el macabro crimen de Rhudy Benavides que aterrorizó al Cusco”, Infobae Perú, May 4, 2026, https://www.infobae.com/peru/2026/05/04/lo-mataron-mientras-dormia-lo-descuartizaron-y-lo-cocinaron-con-verduras-el-macabro-crimen-de-rhudy-benavides-que-aterrorizo-al-cusco/. ↩︎
  2. Congreso de la República del Perú, “Moción de Orden del Dia N°16090”, Congreso de la República, March 4, 2025, https://img.lpderecho.pe/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mocion-16090.pdf; Presidencia del Consejo de Ministros (PCM), “Poder Ejecutivo remitió al Congreso el proyecto de ley que incorpora el delito de terrorismo urbano al Código Penal”, Plataforma del Estado Peruano, October 3, 2024, https://www.gob.pe/institucion/pcm/noticias/1033575-poder-ejecutivo-remitio-al-congreso-el-proyecto-de-ley-que-incorpora-el-delito-de-terrorismo-urbano-al-codigo-penal. ↩︎
  3. Jorge Aragón et al., La normalización de la excepción: Estados de Emergencia en el Perú (2000–2024) (Escuela de Gobierno y Políticas Públicas – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú: Lima, 2025). ↩︎
  4. IDEHPUCP, “Violencia criminal, protestas y la ‘oportunidad autoritaria’”, IDEHPUCP, October 29, 2024, https://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/boletin-eventos/editorial-violencia-criminal-protestas-y-la-oportunidad-autoritaria/. ↩︎
  5. Iris Jave, “Democracia y derechos, la misma disputa”, IDEHPUCP, April 28, 2026, https://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/boletin-eventos/democracia-y-derechos-la-misma-disputa/. ↩︎
  6. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, “IEP Informe de Opinión – Septiembre 2023 (Informe completo)” (IEP: Lima, 2025), https://iep.org.pe/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/IEP-Informe-de-Opinion-Septiembre-2023-completo.pdf. ↩︎
  7. Luis Villanueva, “56% de peruanos considera que Dina Boluarte es responsable de la inseguridad ciudadana”, Peru 21, February 2, 2025, https://peru21.pe/politica/boluarte-congreso-y-la-policia-los-mayores-culpables-de-la-inseguridad-ipsos/. ↩︎
  8. Grupo Internacional de Expertas y Expertos para la Investigación de Violaciones de Derechos Humanos en el marco del Estado de Excepción en El Salvador,  El Salvador en la encrucijada Crímenes de lesa humanidad en el marco de la política de seguridad pública (DPLF: Washington DC, 2026), 7-8, 13, https://dplf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/El-Salvador-en-la-encrucijada-crimenes-de-lesa-humanidad-bajo-la-politica-de-seguridad-publica-2026-GIPES.pdf. ↩︎
  9. CID Gallup, “Bukele alcanza su máximo nivel de aprobación llegando a Semana Santa”,  X, March 25, 2026, https://x.com/cidgallup/status/2036853406170538036; Abigail Parada, “Bukele alcanza el 94% de aprobación entre los salvadoreños, según casa encuestadora”, Infobae, March 25, 2026, https://www.infobae.com/el-salvador/2026/03/25/bukele-alcanza-el-94-de-aprobacion-entre-los-salvadorenos-segun-casa-encuestadora/. ↩︎
  10. Valerie Vásquez de Velasco, “Entrevista al candidato presidencial de País Para Todos”, Peru21, March 14, 2026,
    https://peru21.pe/politica/carlos-alvarez-me-importa-mas-la-vida-de-los-ciudadanos-que-los-derechos-humanos-de-los-delincuentes/. ↩︎
  11. Alexander Villarroel Zurita, “Datum: El 62% considera que las leyes sobre seguridad favorecieron a la delincuencia”, El Comercio, April 21, 2025, https://elcomercio.pe/politica/encuesta-de-datum-internacional-de-abril-revela-que-el-62-considera-que-las-leyes-aprobadas-por-el-congreso-de-la-republica-sobre-seguridad-favorecieron-a-la-delincuencia-crimen-organizado-inseguridad-ciudadana-en-el-peru-extorsiones-sicariato-crisis-en-peru-dina-boluarte-poder-judicial-noticia/. ↩︎
  12. Norbert Lechner, “TWO. Some People Die of Fear: Fear as a Political Problem” in Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, edited by Juan E. Corradi, Patricia Weiss Fagen and Manuel Antonio Garretón (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 26-30, https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1525/9780520912205-003. ↩︎
  13. Karem Barboza Quiroz, “Grupos afines a Sendero Luminoso adoptan nuevas denominaciones”, El Comercio, April 19, 2018, https://elcomercio.pe/politica/grupos-afines-sendero-luminoso-adoptan-nuevas-denominaciones-noticia-513251-noticia/. ↩︎
  14. Poder Judicial del Perú, “Poder Judicial Ordena la Disolución del MOVADEF y el Cierre Definitivo de Todos sus Locales a Nivel Nacional”, Poder Judicial de Peru, October 28, 2024, https://www.pj.gob.pe/wps/wcm/connect/cortesuprema/s_cortes_suprema_home/as_inicio/as_enlaces_destacados/as_imagen_prensa/as_notas_noticias/2024/cs_n-poder-judicial-ordena-disolucion-movadef-cierre-definitivo-todos-locales-nivel-nacional. ↩︎
  15. Tucker Carlson, “President Nayib Bukele: Seeking God’s Wisdom, Taking Down MS-13, and His Advice to Donald Trump”, YouTube video, 20:08, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5n8R9lq8SI. ↩︎