Amazon protestors tear-gassed

Riot police fired tear gas to keep protesters away from Peru’s Congress as thousands marched to back Amazon Indians who want logging laws that they say threaten their lands overturned.

Around 4,000 students, trade unionists and other native Peruvians from the country’s Andean highlands to its jungle lowlands joined the mostly-peaceful nationwide protests.

The protests follow Peru’s worst political violence in more than a decade, when 23 police officers were killed and around 30 civilians hurt as officers broke up an Indian roadblock in the Amazon.