CETRI
The protest call was made on social media under the slogan “We are the 99.9%”, following several days of protests in the capital. According to the protesters, the Peña government continues to uphold a form of power based on corruption and neglects basic services, especially public health and the safety of the population.
Journalist Amado Arrieta told Peoples Dispatch : “What was demanded in the protests was an end to nepotism, an attempt to stop the advance of narco-politics, which has basically taken over the three branches of government, and more opportunities for young people. The children of politicians get the best jobs, sometimes without having the necessary skills.”
According to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Paraguay is one of the most corrupt countries in Latin America.
“Here in Paraguay, we are really asking for security, justice, and health in our country … [We reject] corrupt politicians who steal from the people right in front of them,”nursing student Jenifer González told EFE.
Many media outlets have portrayed the protest as a new example of resistance from what is known as “Generation Z”, that is, protesters born between the late 1990s and 2010, who are fed up with current politics and have already demonstrated in France, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
And while certain symbols were repeated, such as the enormous letters Z painted on walls and flags with images from the anime “One Piece”, the truth is that the mobilization included groups of different ages demanding an end to corruption, nepotism, and the interference of drug trafficking in all structures of the Paraguayan state.
However, it is also important to note the similarities in the mood of the protesters and the demands and symbols between the protests in Asunción andthose that took place on the same day in Lima, Peru, where hundreds of people protested against the political establishment.
In this regard,analyst Leonardo Berniga told DW : “In this mobilization, there is an international identification with a population group that is extremely frustrated by the corruption, inequality, abuse of the law, and injustice that occur in Paraguay, and that coincide with demonstrations that have taken place in Nepal, Peru, and other countries … The mobilization shows that there is a politically aware youth, but one that is not represented in the electoral process.”
The government’s response : a witch hunt ?
On the other hand, it is undeniable that there are also similarities between the responses of Dina Boluarte’s government in Peru and Santiago Peña’s government in Paraguay to the protests. Law enforcement agencies in both countries have shown that they are willing to disperse protesters as quickly as possible and that they can easily arrest those who are demonstrating.
Indeed, the police deployment in Asunción has surprised many. An estimated 3,000 police officers carried out operations against just a few hundred protesters, which shows the force with which the state wanted to act.According to the data, following the protests in Asunción, 10 people were injured and more than 30 were arrested.
In this regard,the Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies condemned what it called “police repression” against the protest : “We condemn the police repression exercised against citizens who demonstrated on Sunday, September 28, 2025, both before and during the demonstration, and against the demonstrators who were arrested during it … Throughout the demonstration, police officers revived the darkest period in national history : the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).”
Arrieta is more cautious in his estimates of the number of protesters, although he also points to the large police presence : “At its peak, there were between 600 and 700 protesters. But before the protest, there was a campaign in the mainstream media that sought to instill fear in the population, suggesting that the Paraguayan March [a political crisis in 1999] in which many young people died would be repeated. Three thousand police officers were deployed, and almost 30 people were arrested. At night, according to reports, a ‘witch hunt’ began, in which anyone who happened to be in the area was arrested.”
Berniga similarly recounts : “There were police persecution operations in raids in which the security forces went out to hunt down demonstrators without a warrant, without records, without due process, detaining people for more than twelve hours, without the presence of a prosecutor, with clear examples of abuse of force.”
A long struggle by Paraguayan youth
But we must not forget the struggles that Paraguayan youth have waged over several decades, beginning with the resistance of many of them to the US-backed dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), one of the longest-lasting of the 20th century,in which more than 20,000 people suffered torture, executions, and/or disappearances.
In 1999, thousands of young people protested in the Paraguayan March, a political crisis that shook Paraguay’s nascent democracy, following the assassination of then-Vice President Luis María Argaña. According to some figures, a massacre left eight protesters’ dead and more than 700 injured. They were opposed to the government of Raúl Cubas, who would eventually resign as president.
In more recent years, young people protested in 2015 against irregularities reported at the National University of Asunción. In 2017, several protesters set fire to the Parliament building after a bill was passed allowing indefinite reelection.
And while different generations of young Paraguayans did not always share the same political ideology or objectives, it is important to emphasize their active and political nature in Paraguay’s recent history.
For now, it remains to be seen whether the September 28 protest was merely a spontaneous act that was controlled by law enforcement or whether, on the contrary, more people will join the new calls for action and unleash demonstrations like those seen in Peru, which are leading the government into a genuine crisis of legitimacy.
