Peru imposes, then withdraws curfew to quell price protests

Peru's president on Tuesday lifted a curfew he had decreed less than a day earlier in the country's capital and its main port in a bid to quell sometimes violent protests over rising fuel and food prices.

President Pedro Castillo had announced the surprise curfew and emergency measures shortly before midnight and ended them Tuesday afternoon after more than 1,000 people protested the stay-at-home order in Lima and amid a meeting with congressional leaders. Opposition lawmakers had decried the emergency measures as illegal.

"It is up to the executive at this time to rescind the measure limiting mobility," Castillo said while he met with lawmakers to discuss the political crisis.

The curfew and emergency measures marked the first time since the government of now-jailed strongman Alberto Fujimori that Peruvian authorities had ordered people to stay at home to control protests. On April 5, 1992, Fujimori shut down Peru's congress and judicial system, and sent tanks into the streets amid social and economic unrest.

On Tuesday, major highways and street markets in Lima were almost deserted, and the main bus and public transportation lines were out of service. The empty streets had resembled the tightest lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic which hit Peru badly, leaving more than 212,000 people dead.

"It's a shame. We're experiencing a terrible economic situation, brother," said Juan Gutierrez, a 45-year-old father of four who had been waiting in vain for a bus for more than an hour so he could get to a clothing workshop where he is paid by the piece.

"Do you know what it means to lose a day? We have to work to eat," he said.

The state of emergency ordered people to stay at home and restricted rights to movement and...