Peru’s new President José Jerí refused to resign on Thursday (October 16, 2025) following the death of a protester during a massive demonstration led by Gen Z activists demanding he step down.

About 100 people were also injured, including 80 police officers and 10 journalists, according to authorities, who said they were investigating the shooting and killing of the protester.

“My responsibility is to maintain the stability of the country; that is my responsibility and my commitment,” Mr. Jerí told the local press after visiting Peru’s Parliament, where he said he would request powers to combat crime.

The protests began a month ago, calling for better pensions and wages for young people, and expanded to capture the woes of Peruvians tired of crime, corruption and decades of disillusion with their government.

After Mr. Jerí, the seventh President in less than a decade, was sworn in on October 10, protesters called for him and other lawmakers to resign.

Explained | Peru’s intensifying anti-government protests, political crisis, and violence 

Protests turn violent

Peru’s prosecutor’s office announced on Thursday that it was investigating the death of 32-year-old protester and hip-hop singer Eduardo Ruíz, who prosecutors said was shot by firearm during the mass demonstration of thousands of young people. It wrote on the social media platform X that it has ordered the removal of Ruíz’s body from a Lima hospital and the “collection of audiovisual and ballistic evidence in the area where the incident occurred, in the context of serious human rights violations”.

Local media and security cameras showed video of Ruíz collapsing in a Lima street after a man fleeing from several protesters fired a shot. Witnesses said the shooter was running away because he was accused of being a plainclothes police officer infiltrated among the demonstrators.

At least 24 protesters and 80 police officers were injured in the demonstrations, according to Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office. Six journalists were struck by pellets and another four were assaulted by police, according to the National Association of Journalists.

The President expressed regret over the protester’s death.

Global trend

The Peruvian protests come amid a wave of protests unfolding across the world, driven by generational discontent against governments and anger among young people. Protests have broken out in Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru and Morocco, with protesters often carrying black flags with the “One Piece” anime symbol — a pirate skull wearing a straw hat.

In Lima’s main plaza, 27-year-old electrician David Tafur said he decided to join the demonstration after learning about it on TikTok.

“We are fighting for the same thing — against the corrupt — who here are also killers,” he said, referring to violent 2022 protests and government crackdown in which 50 people were killed.

Why Gen Z is taking to the streets | In the U.S., Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and now, Nepal 

Controversial new President

The escalating tensions come just days after Peru’s Congress ousted President Dina Boluarte, who was known as one of the least popular Presidents in the world for repressing protests and failing to control crime.

Mr. Jerí, the 38-year-old President of Congress, then took office, promising to get a recent crime wave under control. He swore in Ernesto Álvarez, a ultraconservative former judge active on social media, as Prime Minister.

Mr. Álvarez has not yet commented on it, but previously claimed that Peru’s Gen Z is a “gang that wants to take democracy by storm” and does not represent “the youth who study and work”.

Criticisms of Mr. Jerí and his government quickly emerged because he previously faced an investigation after being accused by a woman of raping her. The prosecutor’s office dismissed the case in August, though authorities continue to investigate another man who was with Mr. Jerí the day of the alleged rape. Protesters also condemned Mr. Jerí because as a legislator, he voted in favour of six laws that experts say weaken the fight against crime.

Protesters demanded Mr. Jerí and other lawmakers resign and repeal the laws they say benefit criminal groups.

During the protest, more than 20 women shouted “The rapist is Jerí” or “Jerí is a violin” — a slang expression in Peru where “violin” means rapist. Protesters launched fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber pellets.

Why was Indonesia rocked by protests? | Explained

Frustrations grow

That anger was built upon decades of frustration by Peruvians, who have seen their leaders, year after year, plagued by corruption scandals, fuelling a feeling of cynicism and deception in many of Peru’s youth.

“After the pension issue, other frustrations followed — linked to insecurity, the erosion of state capacity in Peru, and corruption,” said Omar Coronel, a sociology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, who studies social movements.

Violent scenes from the protest drew back memories of violent protests in the early months of Ms. Boluarte’s government, when 50 protesters were killed.

Protesters held signs reading “Protesting is a right, killing is a crime”. One woman carried a poster that read “From a murderess to a rapist, the same filth”, criticising the change in government.

“For me, it is about outrage over abuse of power, corruption and killings,” said Tafur, the protester.

Published – October 17, 2025 06:41 am IST

Lima:

The Peruvian government is under fire from LGBTQ+ groups which called a protest for Friday against a new decree listing transsexualism as a “mental disorder.”

The government on May 10 updated its list of insurable health conditions — which since 2021 has offered benefits for mental health treatment — to include services for transgender people. 

In the decree, the health ministry describes the condition as a “mental disorder” — an obsolete term long officially abandoned by the World Health Organization.

A demonstration has been called for Lima on Friday, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

But the government said it would not scrap the decree.

Health ministry official Carlos Alvadrado told AFP that doing so would “remove the right to care.”

The ministry has previously insisted it does not consider gender diversity as an illness, and in a statement expressed “our respect for gender identities and our rejection of the stigmatization of sexual diversity.”

It said the decree was meant merely to extend mental health coverage “for the full exercise of the right to health and well-being” of those who want or need it.

Transgender people are those who reject the sex they were assigned at birth. Some opt for surgical or medical intervention.

“We demand the repeal of this transphobic and violent decree, which goes against our trans identities in Peru,” activist Gianna Camacho of the Coordinacion Nacional LGTBIQ+ told AFP.  

“We are not mentally ill and we do not suffer from any mental disorder,” she added. 

An article on the website of Human Rights Watch describes the decree as “profoundly regressive” in a country that does not allow same-sex marriage nor for transgender people to change their identity documents.

“It is a decree that takes us back three decades,” added Jorge Apolaya, spokesman of the Collective Pride March, a Lima-based rights group.

“We cannot live in a country where we are considered sick,” he said.

For Percy Mayta, a medical doctor and activist, “pathologizing” transgender people “opens the door to… conversion therapy” — which UN bodies have equated to torture and is not illegal in Peru.

In its press statement, Peru’s health ministry underlined that “the sexual orientation and gender identity of a person does not in itself constitute a physical or mental health disorder and therefore should not be subjected to medical treatment or care or so-called reconversion therapies.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)