CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests in Peru with an activist with a decade of experience in public mobilisation who has asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

In 2025, Peru experienced one of its most intense waves of protest in recent years. Controversial changes to the pension system triggered mass protests led by young people who organised via social media. The state’s response was repression.

What led you to get involved in the protests?

My first political action was in December 2017, when I took part in a march against the pardon that President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s government had irregularly granted to former dictator Alberto Fujimori. It was my first experience of police repression. At the time, I was active in a progressive university movement at the Faculty of Law of the University of San Martín de Porres. I also took part in protests against the Attorney General’s interference in investigations into the Operation Car Wash corruption scandal and against President Martín Vizcarra’s impeachment by Congress in 2020. That move came in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when what was needed was institutional unity. The crackdown led to the deaths of Bryan Pintado and Inti Sotelo, aged 22 and 24. I was protesting on the same street when it happened and experienced the repression at close quarters. Authorities turned off the lights and blocked the mobile signal.

In 2021, Pedro Castillo won the presidency with a self-described left-wing party, defeating the right wing aligned with Fujimori, which refused to recognise the result. Civil society responded with weeks of sit-ins outside the National Electoral Board until results were recognised. In 2022, the president attempted to dissolve Congress and Congress responded by impeaching the president. The vice-president, Dina Boluarte, took his place, and many of us young people protested for months. Around 50 people were killed in those protests, some of them children. Faced with brutal repression, social organisations retreated. In the years that followed, we only mobilised to mark important dates.

In September 2025, the approval of regulations for a new pensions law reignited protests. The legislation made clear that Congress was protecting the privileges of the pension fund administrators at the expense of workers. The outburst also reflected a sense of frustration that had built up over the years.

Were the motivations for the protests economic or political?

The distinction is not clear-cut. What mobilised people was the perception of structural injustice. The state exercises multiple forms of violence against different parts of society, including students, women and workers. Those in power have justified the sexual abuse of girls as cultural practices, comprehensive sex education has been abolished and so-called ‘pro-crime’ laws have been passed to benefit criminals.

The 2025 protests were triggered by the pension changes, but demands went much further. Protesters called for the repeal of ‘pro-crime’ laws and for new elections. But the authorities didn’t give ground on any substantive demand.

How were protests organised and what role did social media play?

The first mobilisation of this cycle, on 13 September 2025, was completely spontaneous and chaotic. There were multiple calls to action from various TikTok accounts, with different times and meeting points. From then on, coordination shifted to WhatsApp groups, where common dates, locations and times were agreed. Organisation took shape in the run-up to the major mobilisation on 15 October, when student federations and transport organisations joined the movement.

Social media was crucial for spreading calls to action and breaking through the information bubble created by algorithms. Many young people don’t read the press or watch television, and the information they access depends on their digital profiles. The dissemination of information via personal and collective accounts made it possible to reach those who would otherwise not have heard about it.

Social media platforms were also risky spaces. State agents infiltrated WhatsApp groups, sharing illicit content to criminalise participants. Between 18 and 20 September, the phone lines of several activists were blocked because their devices were reported as stolen, leaving the coordinators cut off just before the protests. Some groups migrated to Telegram for security reasons.

Fully digital groups also emerged, made up of people too young to attend marches. Using image recognition tools, they identified undercover police officers on social media and alerted protesters in real time.

What risks did those who took part in the protests face?

The most serious risk was police repression, which in Peru has a recent history of extreme lethality. During protests in 2022 and 2023 in southern Peru, security forces used firearms and committed extrajudicial killings. This is what led delegations representing organised civil society in the interior of the country to travel to the capital, Lima, where they hoped greater visibility would offer them some protection. In Lima, repression was also violent, with arrests, beatings, rubber bullets and teargas, but less lethal. One protester, Víctor Santisteban Yacsavilca, was killed in Lima, while in other regions there were dozens of deaths and many injuries.

During the 2025 protests, undercover police posed a particular danger. One of them killed veteran activist Mauricio ‘Trvko’ Ruiz after he was discovered in the midst of a protest. At a rally on 15 October, the use of stun grenades caused panic and a human stampede. People fell, suffocated and were trampled as the exits were blocked.

There were also arbitrary arrests with lasting consequences. Samuel Rodríguez was arrested for trying to stop a police officer beating a person on the ground, charged under the in-flagrante procedure and detained in prison for almost a month. Although he’s now free, legal proceedings against him continue, forcing him to appear in court periodically and making it difficult for him to find employment.

Criminalisation also took more covert forms. As in previous protest waves, the Counter-Terrorism Directorate sought to promote the narrative that protests were linked to terrorism, and many protesters received death threats via anonymous social media accounts.

What did protests achieve?

Congress withdrew some of the most scandalous articles from the pension changes, but it did so for electoral reasons and at the start of the protests, not in response to them. The central demands were ignored.

However, it would be unfair to speak of defeat. It was the state that failed, having to resort to violence to contain people exercising a legitimate right. The protests also left an organisational legacy. New collectives emerged and a coordinating body of Gen Z collectives was formed. Many of these groups remain active, though weakened by internal conflicts and the electoral process, which in Peru has historically had the effect of fragmenting the energy of social movements.

The current context provides the conditions for new mobilisations. There are attempts to disregard the vote from Peru’s interior, and far-right narratives have eroded trust in the electoral system. If authorities once again ignore the popular will, accumulated discontent could trigger a new outbreak.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.