“We were beaten with sticks”: women protested police abuse in Chimalhuacán

Several dozen women demonstrated this Wednesday in Mexico City to report that they were recently assaulted by the police in Chimalhuacán, a municipality in the State of Mexico.

“We don't deserve this fear,” claimed one of the women who, like her colleagues, told the press about the alleged assaults carried out by people dressed in civilian clothes but who, some of them, carried long guns and who attacked them, she says, with partitions and pipes.

On April 2, the group of women activists were in front of the Chimalhuacán Justice Center — a unit belonging to the Attorney General of Justice of the State of Mexico (FGJEM) — accompanying Irene Cervantes, a woman who two years ago reported that her minor daughter was abducted, tortured and raped by agents of the police of the State of Mexico.

Since she reported the case, Cervantes, her colleagues reported, has suffered harassment, harassment and was even allegedly assaulted by police officers.

They reported that on 1 April traffic police arrested the woman on the grounds that the motorcycle she was riding was stolen. Three hours later she was beaten and without two teeth.

On 2 April, several police officers were detained inside the center, and the activists gathered outside the building to demand that all other people linked to Irene's case and that of her daughter be arrested.

They reported that since the afternoon of that day, when around 20 women gathered, they were besieged by several men who said they were not police officers.

At some point, gender prosecutor Dilcya García came out to talk to the protesters and asked them to leave the place — to which they refused — and assured them that no one was going to do anything to them.

However, after midnight and when they saw that the protesters were not going to leave the scene, they said that García waved at which the men they had seen during the afternoon surrounded and attacked them.

In addition, they reported that a gray van also arrived from which people with long guns got off. They said there were about 200 men attacking them.

“We were beaten with sticks, beaten by groups of men who threw (threw) a fence on us, gassed us, broke our cell phones and megaphones and houses (tents),” they shared.

The protesters considered that the policemen intended to “cause a lot of damage”, since one of them ended up with a broken arm that needed surgery, another with four broken ribs and all of them with bruises on different parts of the body.

“We hold federal and state authorities responsible for anything that happens to Irene and her daughter or us,” they said.

In addition to the pronouncement, they read a petition in which they demanded the holding of a public forum with the Mexican State Attorney, a public apology from the State of Mexico and the municipal government of Chimalhuacán “where torture is recognized” and the construction of an “antimonumenta” —installation placed in the wake of a popular protest.

They also called for the creation of a protocol for response to protests, justice for Irene's case, immediate medical attention and a guarantee of non-repetition.

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