Thousands Protest Against Police Violence – Mexico City Assesses Damage
Disorder Friday night erupted as part of protests that arose this week after a number of high-profile sexual assault cases involving active police officers. The perception has been that city officials were not adequately investigating specific rape accusations, in which both victims were teenage girls. The protests were sparked by two recent cases – that of a 17-year-old who said four policemen raped her in their patrol car, and a 16-year-old who said a policeman raped her in a museum. The demonstrations have become known as the “glitter protests” after marchers doused the city’s police chief in pink glitter.
Some two thousand protestors, mostly women, took to the streets and chanted slogans including “I believe you” and “My friends protect me, you [the police] don’t”.
Hundreds of city workers spent the wee hours of the morning pressure-cleaning and painting over graffiti.
The deputy director of artistic patrimony at the National Fine Arts Institute, Dolores Martínez, said that officials were assessing the damage to the base of the iconic Angel statue and to other points in the city. Martínez added, the fine arts institute “respects freedom of speech and offers support for actions to eradicate all forms of violence against women.”
Protesters wrote phrases like “They don’t take care of us, they rape us” and “rape state” in lime green, purple and black spray paint across the base of the Angel monument, which commemorates Mexico’s independence from Spain and is often the site of celebrations by city residents.
Demonstrators also painted the word “rapists” on the wall of a nearby police station and trashed a major bus station. A male television reporter was assaulted by another man while covering the protest. The protestors also damaged a subway station and two trains.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo issued a Twitter statement following the demonstrations, saying her government was taking the protesters’ “legitimate demand for the eradication of gender violence” seriously.
Citing statistics from the Secretariat of Security and Civil Protection / Executive Commission for Victim Support, the BBC reports that 94% of rapes are estimated to go unreported in Mexico. 8,464 cases have been reported from January to June 2019, with 667 of them occurring in Mexico City. According to the United Nations, an average of nine women are murdered daily in Mexico.
