On 4 February 2000, Baruch Ivcher Bronstein, the majority shareholder of television station Frecuencia Latina (Canal 2) sent a letter to members of congress in the United States and Europe, the Department of State, human rights groups and press freedom organisations, among others. The letter was sent from Tel Aviv, Israel, where Ivcher is currently […]
On 4 February 2000, Baruch Ivcher Bronstein, the majority shareholder of television station Frecuencia Latina (Canal 2) sent a letter to members of congress in the United States and Europe, the Department of State, human rights groups and press freedom organisations, among others. The letter was sent from Tel Aviv, Israel, where Ivcher is currently living, and stated that the Peruvian government has failed to reinstate his Peruvian citizenship, thus questioning statements made to that effect by Premier Alberto Bustamante Belaunde during his last official visit to Washington, D.C.
In his letter, Ivcher stated that “Bustamante said […] that I am Peruvian, therefore my citizenship has not been cancelled, solely my citizenship documents are invalid.”
According to the businessman, after an appeal by his lawyers, Lima’s Twenty-Eighth Civil Court decided that Ivcher could not use his electoral booklet as valid identification because he had been stripped of his Peruvian citizenship. The court noted that while the Ministry of the Interior’s Migration Directors resolution is in force, Ivcher must demonstrate his “civil rights as a Peruvian” while in Tel Aviv, or, failing to do so, he is required to “present a legitimate document which identifies him as a foreigner.”
“The court’s new decision is void of autonomy and independence and, as a number of United States Congress resolutions have pointed out, contradicts the statements made by Bustamante in Washington D.C., as the civil court assumes that I have been stripped of my citizenship,” Ivcher stated in his letter.
Ivcher went on to add: “Furthermore, the civil courtâs insistance that I demonstrate that I am exercising my civil rights as a Peruvian shows that the renewal of my passport has not changed my legal status, which is that of a person stripped of his nationality, contrary to whatever Bustamante and the Peruvian president have claimed.”
“In other words, for the government I am Peruvian when they want to improve their image with the international community, but I am no longer considered as such when it comes to defending and protecting my rights before the courts,” Ivcher stated in his letter.
