Peru, Tunisia, Mexico ... and a favor.

Today's three stories you should know.

Dec 17, 2022

Hi everyone. Wanted to say hello and ask a quick favor: I have plans to expand Proximities a little next year and offer some new content in addition to the newsletter. It would be great to get some fresh subscribers in before I go ahead. So, if you’re enjoying Proximities and finding it useful, I’d be hugely grateful if you could recommend it - on your social platforms of choice, on email lists, on WhatsApp groups or any other networks you have access to. A really nice community has grown around the newsletter and I’d love to have more people join in.

Very bests and thank you as always for being a subscriber,

Barry.

Peru

Peru is in chaos. President Dina Boluarte, in power for just 10 days, has urged parliament to bring forward elections as furious and violent protests continue over the ousting of her predecessor Pedro Castillo. Castillo was impeached and arrested on December 7 after he attempted to dissolve parliament in a move his opponents said would have amounted to a coup. Supporters of the leftist former schoolteacher, the first president from an Indigenous background, have taken to the streets, though, demanding Boluarte’s resignation, Castillo’s release and immediate elections. At least 20 people have been killed in the demonstrations. Peru has gone through years of political turmoil and Boluarte has become its sixth president in six years.

Tunisia

Tunisians voted in parliamentary elections today but, with most of the opposition boycotting, there appeared to be little enthusiasm among voters. President Kais Saied dissolved the country’s then parliament in July 2021 and began to consolidate power in a manner that opponents said made him, in effect, a dictator. Only 1,000 candidates are running compared to 15,500 in 2019, and some constituencies have just one candidate who will be elected automatically. Twelve political parties, including the Muslim Democratic Ennahdha and the centrist Qalb Tounes, which made up the largest bloc in the parliament Saied dissolved, have boycotted the election entirely.

Mexico

You need to be very brave and dedicated to be a journalist in Mexico. Figures show that 2022 was the deadliest year in three decades for members of the media with 15 murdered. One of the country’s most famous journalists, Ciro Gómez Leyva, narrowly escaped death just last Thursday when men on motorcycles peppered his armored car with gunfire. Many of those killed, though, were freelancers or journalists running small-time operations in rural towns. Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the only country in which more journalists were killed this year was Ukraine. Hootsen added that the killers of journalists were almost never held to account. “In terms of impunity, we are still seeing just about the same numbers that we’ve always seen, which means that more than 95% of all the murders of journalists linger in impunity,” he said.