Volatile protests engulfed the capital of Mexico on Monday, when the police clashed with thousands of feminist activists calling for an end to what they say is a crisis of violence against women here.
In Mexico City’s central plaza, known as the Zocalo, police sprayed tear gas on protesters who disfigured the city’s office buildings and used crowbar and hammers to knock down parts of a 3.6-meter-high steel barrier erected in around the National Palace, the center of Mexico’s federal government and the home of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Authorities said at least 62 policemen and 19 civilians were injured.
“We are protecting your daughters and sisters,” shouted women at the police.
The protests, part of a series of feminist marches held around the world on International Women’s Day, take place amid a scandal that has divided Mexico bitterly, pitting its ruling party against its increasingly visible feminist leaders.
For weeks, women across the country have demanded that the Morena party abandon support for a candidate for governor accused by five women of sexual assault.
López Obrador firmly defended the candidate, Senator Félix Salgado Macedonio, repeatedly dismissing the accusations as nothing more than partisan political attacks. “Enough!” the president said at a recent news conference in response to questions about the allegations.
The defense of the president of Salgado put him in conflict with female leaders in his own party and with the country’s feminist movement, which has perhaps become the most organized opposition force that López Obrador has ever faced since winning by a landslide in 2018.
Women have protested violence in Mexico for decades, including the 1990s, when they mobilized to call attention to the murders of hundreds of women in the border town of Juarez.
But the feminist movement has become increasingly visible in recent years, thanks in part to a younger, more militant generation that has been willing to deface properties to draw attention to what it sees as an epidemic of gender violence in Mexico, where an average of 11 women are killed each day.
Last spring, after a series of particularly horrific murders in Mexico City, which included the murder of a 7-year-old girl, tens of thousands of women took to the streets in a historic march that ended with clashes between police and protesters, that covered some of the most iconic monuments in the country with pink and purple graffiti.
Several months later, some of the same collectives of activists who organized the march took control of Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, tearing paintings of revolutionary heroes off the walls and declaring that the building would become a haven for women victims of violence.
Fearing similar actions during this year’s march, police over the weekend erected protective barriers in the Zocalo around major government buildings. Within hours, activists covered the barriers with the names of women who were killed by the violence. Nearby, around a tall mast, they pasted photos of men who said they were rapists.
Early Monday afternoon, the square was filled with protesters, many of whom wore the green bandanas that have become the symbol of the pro-choice movement in Latin America in recent years.
“Abort this patriarchal system!” the women screamed as they burned a pile of garbage that included plastic shock shields that they had removed from the police.
A woman, Fernanda Grostieta, 26, carried a large banner printed with a photo of a beautiful teenager with short hair and glasses. “You saw her?” the poster read.
Grostieta said the young woman, a schoolmate, disappeared four years ago after complaining about domestic violence committed by her romantic partner. Grostieta believes that he killed her.
The issue of violence against women is not an abstract one, she said: “For all of us, this is personal”.
The accusations against Salgado were released last fall, when it became clear that he would be a candidate for governor of the state of Guerrero by Morena, a center-left party founded by López Obrador.
Among the accusers is a woman who told the police in 2016 that Salgado drugged and raped her. She said Salgado recorded a video of the first attack and used it as blackmail to rape her on at least two more occasions. Another woman, a Morena activist and longtime supporter of López Obrador, told police that Salgado raped her in 1998 when she was 17.
Salgado Macedonia was not charged with any crime. He denies the charges.
In a letter to party leaders last month, some of Morena’s most prominent officials asked the party to withdraw its support for Salgado, a move that some analysts said showed the growing influence of feminist street protests.
Cecilia Sanchez, from The Times’ Mexico City office, contributed to this report.