LIMA: LGBT active supporters and workers in Peru kept a protest upon Friday (Aug 26) questioning how their particular government handled the death of a Peruvian transgender man in Indonesia earlier this particular month who was held at the airport upon arriving to commemorate his honeymoon.
Rodrigo Ventosilla, a Peruvian graduate student at Harvard University and transgender rights activist, died on the tourist tropical isle of Bali of “bodily failure” days after being held for alleged marijuana possession.
Peru’s foreign ministry released a statement recently calling Ventosilla’s supposed drug possession a critical crime in Indonesia and that transphobia has not been a factor in his arrest, but did not acknowledge he had later died while in custody.
“We reject and condemn the foreign ministry’s statement, ” said LGBT activist Luz Manriquez at a small protest within Lima.
Manriquez said the government’s statement was biased because it adopted Indonesia’s position and did not demand an investigation.
“It lacks sympathy because it does not recognize that a Peruvian has died in the hands of police from another country, inch Manriquez added.
Brenda Alvarez, an attorney for Ventosilla’s loved ones, told reporters on Friday the foreign ministry had agreed to apologise over the statement and launch a study.
Peru’s foreign ministry could not end up being reached for comment.
Alvarez added there is no date to get when Ventosilla’s entire body will arrive in Lima.
The Indonesian police told Reuters this week the case can be closed and that simply no violence was involved with Ventosilla’s death.
“Even if you are held in another country, it is unreal and painful that will (the Peruvian government) can leave you such as this, ” said Arturo Davila, a member associated with Diversidades Trans Masculinas, a trans legal rights organization that Ventosilla founded seven years ago in Peru.