Hundreds of motorcycle taxi drivers protested peacefully on Thursday in front of Congress in the capital of Peru, demanding effective laws against crime, amid an increase in extortion in the country and after at least 15 motorcycle taxi drivers were murdered in Lima since August.
“The laws favor crime, we are already tired of extortions and deaths,” said Edwin Casas, a leader of a motorcycle taxi union in the eastern outskirts of Lima, who supports his two teenage children and his elderly mother. with your daily work.
One group carried a sign summarizing their complaints. “Today there are new forms of extortion such as the daily collection of money at authorized stops; For the police, charging one sol (27 cents) is a ridiculous payment, the problem that the police and the prosecutor’s office do not understand: is that if you refuse to pay that sol, they kill you,” read the banner he had an image of a hand holding a gun.
In front of a barrier of riot police that separated him from Congress, Casas told The Associated Press that motorcycle taxi drivers are unprotected. “It’s ironic,” he noted. “When we protest there are always a lot of police, when they extort us there is no one to protect us,” he indicated.
The leader recalled that in Lima at least since August there have been at least 15 murders of motorcycle taxi drivers. They have all occurred in peripheral neighborhoods, where police presence is scarce. It is unknown how many motorcycle taxi drivers exist in Peru because it is a mostly informal job, but the non-governmental organization Luz Ambar, specialized in transportation, estimates one million throughout the country.
Extortions have quintupled in Peru between 2021 and 2023 and Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzén recognized that crime “in some cities overwhelms the capacity to confront it” and admitted that “many of the extortions come from some prisons.”
The Casas union is made up of 70 motorcycle taxi drivers. The 39-year-old man indicated that his work as a leader has become risky. Adjusting his glasses, he recalled that he has been extorted three times by three different groups this year. “You go to the police station and they don’t help you and when they do, you know they’re not going to do anything,” he said.
“We want to enjoy what you enjoy,” they told him two weeks ago and they lifted their polo shirts (t-shirts) showing guns and grenades on their waists, then they asked him for a payment of 2,000 soles a month, about $530.
Casas has not paid, the men have not returned, but he has remained worried. He doesn’t answer the phone like before, only known numbers and WhatsApp messages. “For this reason, we protest because we are fed up that the police do not protect us, no one protects us,” he said.
Since September 26, there have been three massive stoppages of public bus transportation in Lima, also affected by extortion. A new citizen protest was called for November 13, 14 and 15 when the Leaders’ Week of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC, for its acronym in English), where the presidents of the 21 countries that make up APEC usually come, including China.
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