Mexican Women Protest Femicides as President Warns Against Violence

MEXICO CITY — An Worldwide Ladies’s Day rally in Mexico on Tuesday drew hundreds of protesters, with throngs marching towards violence and streaming go the presidential palace and nationwide monuments within the capital that had been cordoned off with enormous steel fences amid fears of unrest.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been accused of not doing sufficient to stem the rise in femicides, urged calm whereas warning that the protests may flip violent.

The Mexico Metropolis police mentioned that they had seized Molotov cocktails, weapons equivalent to bats and hammers and fireworks from protesters within the afternoon. Native information media reported that two protesters had been injured after swinging at a glass bus cease, which got here crashing down on prime of them.

The authorities had erected a protecting steel barrier across the Nationwide Palace, the seat of presidency the place the presidential household lives, and different historic buildings forward of the protests. Later Tuesday night time, video footage shared on-line confirmed a blaze on the door of the palace after marchers entered the constructing, based on native information experiences.

Protesters wrote, “MEXICO FEMICIDE” in towering white letters on the black steel cordon in entrance of the palace, which faces the Zocalo fundamental sq., the stage for a lot of main demonstrations.

Final 12 months, ladies marching on Worldwide Ladies’s Day additionally clashed with the police at barricades surrounding the Nationwide Palace. Protesters tried to tear down a steel wall put in to guard authorities property from vandalism, prompting officers to fireside pepper spray.

Mexico recorded 969 femicides final 12 months, up barely from 949 in 2020, based on authorities figures. Activists say the true figures are most definitely a lot larger, and a few estimate that 10 ladies a day are killed due to their gender.

A gaggle of protesters chanted, “Ladies united, won’t ever be defeated,” as they arrived close to the Nationwide Palace on Tuesday, waving white flags. Others, carrying purple bandanas for the area’s feminist motion or inexperienced in assist of abortion rights, marched down certainly one of Mexico Metropolis’s fundamental avenues holding banners and posters with feminist slogans.

Frida Moreno, 21, a scholar who mentioned that abusive academics had scarred her upbringing, mentioned she believed she had an obligation to march in order that different younger ladies could be spared comparable experiences.

“Though I really feel privileged as a result of I stay in a secure space, nobody can assure that at some point I cannot disappear,” mentioned Ms. Moreno, on the verge of tears.

Mr. López Obrador, who appointed ladies to half his cupboard posts, has rejected claims by activists that he’s not considering tackling femicides, saying that progress has been made to defend ladies’s rights.

Requested on Tuesday morning if the protests may turn into violent, as one authorities official had predicted, the president nodded.

“There may be infiltration of the feminist motion generally by conservative teams,” he mentioned, noting that it was mistaken “to make use of violence for political functions.”

The Mexico Metropolis authorities had mentioned it might deploy dozens of paramedics in addition to an all-female police power.