On the Other Side of Freedom

The testimonies presented here come from women sentenced for terrorism and held in the Chorrillos prison. The guilt or innocence of those giving testimony is not at issue: some acknowledge having been connected to subversive groups, while others deny it. What unifies and makes these testimonies relevant is that they account for torture and mistreatment suffered at the time of their detention, during the investigation and trial process, and under the prison conditions they had to endure. This is not the first time testimonies of torture in Peru have come to light. Nearly two decades ago, a study on torture in the early years of the 1980s was published, covering an area of the country at that time unaffected by any subversive violence: Chimbote. What was denounced there was not a set of occasional or atypical practices. It was a quasi-institutionalized pattern of behavior among the security forces that, beyond denunciations such as those in the aforementioned book, would reach its zenith in the subsequent years. (Excerpt from the presentation).