16, 2025. Peru's new President José Jerí refused to resign after a Gen Z-led protest in Lima turned violent, leaving at least one demonstrator dead and about 100 people injured. The dead protester was identified by prosecutors as 32-year-old hip-hop singer Eduardo Ruíz, and authorities said they were investigating whether the shooting amounted to a serious human rights violation.
The protest had already drawn thousands of young people to the streets over pensions, wages, crime and corruption, but the death gave it a new urgency. Officials said 80 police officers and 10 journalists were among the injured. The National Association of Journalists said six journalists were hit by pellets and four more were assaulted by police. Prosecutors ordered the removal of Ruíz's body from a Lima hospital and the collection of video and ballistic evidence from the scene.
Video recorded by local media and security cameras showed Ruíz collapsing on a street in the capital after a man fleeing from a crowd fired a shot. Witnesses told reporters the shooter was running away because people believed he was a plainclothes officer who had infiltrated the demonstration. The exact sequence of events remained under investigation, but the images of a dead protester and injured journalists deepened public anger.
Jerí, who took office on Oct. 10 after Congress ousted Dina Boluarte, said his duty was to preserve stability and that he would seek greater powers to confront crime. His critics note that he already faced an investigation over an allegation of rape, a case prosecutors dismissed in August, and that he voted for a set of laws that experts say weaken the fight against crime. Protesters have seized on those details to argue that the new government lacks the credibility to deliver reform.
The demonstrations have become a wider expression of frustration with corruption, insecurity and years of political turmoil. Protesters in Lima carried Peruvian flags, burned a cardboard effigy near Congress and clashed with riot police, who used tear gas and rubber pellets. The unrest also echoes earlier violent protests in 2022, when 50 people were killed after Boluarte came to power. For now, Peru faces the same mix of anger and distrust that has driven seven presidents in less than a decade from one crisis to the next.
The protests also fit a broader wave of generational anger that has been visible far beyond Peru, but the local triggers were unmistakable: crime, distrust in institutions and a sense that successive governments have failed to protect ordinary people. In Lima, the slogan-heavy march mixed grief, rage and social-media mobilization, creating a scene that was as much about legitimacy as it was about any single policy demand. That combination left the new government with a crisis of trust as well as a crisis of public order. That credibility gap matters because Jerí is trying to present himself as a stabilizer after an abrupt change of power, and the protests will keep testing whether his government can survive both the investigation and the anger.
