News from Lori's Parents

30 August 2002

In this update:

Mark visits Lori in Cajamarca

Mark spent two full days with Lori last weekend at Huacariz Prison in Cajamarca. She was basically in good spirits with rosy red checks, a rash on her eyelids, and swollen purple hands.

Friday was a special day at the prison. University students performed local dances and played Andean musical instruments, a theatre club performed comedy skits and read poetry, and sixth-grade school children read poetry and sang songs. All the students, particularly the children, were anxious to meet Lori. A group of four young girls dedicated a love song specifically to a Peruvian poet and especially to Lori Berenson and then sang to an audience of hundreds of prisoners.

Lori denounces Perú's continued failure to adhere to recommendations of human rights organizations

Lori wrote a letter to the human rights community indicating that three prisoners were recently transferred from prisons in the north to the notorious Yanamayo Prison in the south and that other prisoners whom she knows have been threatened with transfer there in the future. Perú continues to snub the recommendations of the United Nations, the OAS, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch:Americas who have declared that Yanamayo should be closed down and that its prison population should be transferred elsewhere. These same organizations have said similar things about Challapalca Prison and the Callao Naval Base Prison. Perú refuses to listen. Please read the full text of Lori's statement.

"Rights Action" raising funds for Perú Program

The human rights organization Rights Action with offices in Guatemala City, Washington DC, and Toronto is raising funds for its Perú program. The intent is to provide information on continued human rights abuses by the Peruvian government and to give voice to the Peruvian political prisoners. Please read more about this worthy project. For those of you who received the Newsletter, please note that the address for Rights Action is 1830 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009. (We apologize for the "typo" in the Newsletter).

Council on Hemispheric Affairs and The Office of the Americas urge Perú's compliance with the Inter-American Commission decision on Lori's case

Larry Birns, Executive Director of COHA (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) and Blase Bonpane, Director of OOA (Office of the Americas) have issued statements critical of Perú for failing to meet its international commitments and adhere to the rulings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Lori's case. Please read Larry Birns' scathing critique of Perú. Blase Bonpane's powerful statement on Pacifica Radio can be heard on "Today's Voice: August 29" at www.voice4change.org/ or at the OOA Web site www.officeoftheamericas.org.

- Rhoda and Mark Berenson