MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gustavo Petro has been officially banned from entering Peruvian territory

Petro has been officially banned from entering Peruvian territory

Peru's one-house Congress approved late Friday by 72 votes in favor, 29 against, and 7 abstentions, the declaration of Colombian President Gustavo Petro as “persona non grata” for his statements likening the local police to Nazi troops. The decision had been endorsed Tuesday by the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.

Read also: Peruvian Congressional Committee declares Petro persona non grata

The resolution banning Colombia's first-ever leftwing head of state from entering Peruvian territory adds to the multiple international frictions President Dina Boluarte has been facing after her inauguration following the Dec. 7 impeachment of Pedro Castillo Terrones.

Last weekend, Petro referred to the mobilization of troops made by the Peruvian Police in downtown Lima, while unions and social organizations gathered a few blocks away, to protest against President Dina Boluarte.

“They are marching like Nazis against their own people, breaking the American Convention on Human Rights,” Petro had said about Peru's National Police (PNP) deployments to neutralize popular demonstrations demanding Boluarte's resignation, fresh elections, a Constituent Assembly and Castillo's release from prison.

The Foreign Affairs Committee issued then a declaration against Petro, saying that “no one can offend [the PNP] them by saying that they are Nazi troops,” according to Chairwoman Maria del Carmen Alva.

Hence, the Peruvian Parliament branded Petro's statements as “unacceptable” and considered that “they constitute an offense to the Police of Peru, to the Republic of Peru and, by trivializing the Holocaust, they also constitute an offense to the entire Jewish people.”

Petro, along with the governments of Mexico, Bolivia, and Argentina, expressed their support for Castillo, who has been under arrest since he attempted to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, which sparked a wave of demonstrations that left over 50 people dead.

The Peruvian Congress had already approved a motion rejecting the “interference” in the country's internal affairs of Petro and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who also granted asylum to Castillo's family.