By Daina Beth Solomon
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Women across Mexico prepared for marches to mark International Women’s Day on Monday, moved by anger that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador supported a politician accused of rape at a time when the country suffers from increasing gender violence.
Activists in the past few days have displayed a purple banner declaring “no aggressor in power” in Mexico City’s main square, renaming the streets with women’s names pasted to signs and using purple, green and pink in social media avatars.
In the national palace, where Lopez Obrador resides, protesters painted the names of hundreds of femicide victims on 3-meter-high metal barriers that were erected last week to protect the historic building from vandalism during Monday’s marches.
Activists also designed feminist slogans in bright lights on the barricaded facade of the palace, including a message saying “a rapist will not be governor”, effectively turning the riot control measures into a monument against the government’s apparent apathy towards violence against women. women.
Lopez Obrador defended his party’s candidate in the mid-term elections in June for Guerrero state governor Félix Salgado for weeks, describing requests for him to resign on rape charges as politically motivated.
Guerrero’s prosecutors are investigating a rape charge against Salgado, after opening an investigation earlier this year on another charge that they said was filed long after the alleged crime.
Salgado denied the charges, Mexican media reported.
Lopez Obrador said on Monday that more women are participating in politics than ever, including nine ministers, and defended his government’s unprecedented action to surround the palace with barriers as a way to discourage violent demonstrations without provoking confrontations with the troops. shock.
“There are many ways to protest peacefully, like shouting and even insulting,” he said at a regular news conference. “But not throwing bombs, not using hammers, not setting fire.”
Thousands of women took to the streets a year ago to demand a tougher government response to femicide, with some protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at the national palace and vandalizing buildings in what were once peaceful protests.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Additional reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)