Statement against defamation by Willax Television (Peru) against a member of CLACSO
El CLACSO Working Group on Collective Memories and Practices of Resistance expresses its deep rejection of the attacks made against the Peruvian professor Lina Isabel Ponte Bermudes, an active researcher of our GT, who has been the victim of unacceptable practices of stigmatization and criminalization by Willax Television in the program Contra Corriente by Augusto Thorndike, on August 18, 2024.
The report accuses her, without presenting any evidence, of being a "teacher of terror," a "pro-Shining Path militant," a "Shining Path infiltrator," and of "instilling extremist and "bloody" ideologies in young people—all in order to justify the political harassment against her. Lina is a master's student in sociology at the National University of San Marcos and a teacher at a private school in Callao.
In her capacity as a teacher, there has never been any questioning or complaint from the educational community about the curriculum content she taught, nor about her qualities as a teacher or person.
However, Willax, by spreading misinformation about the recent Olimpo criminal case in which dozens of people have been imprisoned and criminalized for their political activism in Peru and in which Lina Ponte has been unjustly implicated, is trying to link her to "terrorist" actions completely unrelated to our colleague's activities.
We consider this a clear violation of their dignity and their civil, political, and labor rights, and it constitutes yet another act of terrorism and defamation. In Peru, these practices have become an authoritarian and stigmatizing political strategy employed by far-right sectors against social, professional, and academic organizations that express a dissenting voice against the status quo.
As members of CLACSO Working Group on Collective Memories and Practices of ResistanceWe, a group comprised of more than 70 academics from various Latin American and European countries, express our rejection of the "terrorist" rhetoric and the criminalizing narratives that seek to establish and normalize it. These narratives undermine democratic guarantees and human and civil rights, especially in contexts of political crisis such as the one facing the Peruvian state.
August 28th, 2024
CLACSO Working Groups
Collective memories and resistance practices
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
