MEXICO WOMEN
MEXICO CITY, April 15 (EFE) .- Mexico City police this Friday recovered a public building belonging to the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) which had been occupied for more than a year and a half by the feminist group Okupa with families of victims of femicide and disappearance.
Mexico City’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, justified the activists’ eviction after a public complaint by a woman who released a video showing four hooded women from the group she was on board destroying her vehicle.
“Following a complaint of attacks on República de Cuba street, the CDMX and SSC_CDMX (Secretariat for Citizen Security) prosecutors have intervened and recovered a property that the attackers abandoned to prevent it from being used for further actions that endangered the Citizens,” the secretary tweeted.
The women had taken over the CNDH building in Mexico City’s historic center since September 4, 2020, to demand justice for the numerous cases of femicide and gender-based violence in the country, in which they kill more than 10 women a day.
The aim of the occupation, which sparked a nationwide uproar, was to create a safe space where women who had suffered violence could receive all kinds of support.
But the CNDH asked Mexico City’s prosecutors this Friday to investigate the group after complaints were made Thursday about a woman who was driving her car when four hooded women left the building to attack her with whistles.
“This National Commission is concerned about the events taking place within the same place and its surroundings, which have already been documented both publicly and through reports and complaints by several victims,” the autonomous body warned.
At the time, Okupa’s mobilization sparked a wave of protests that were repeated in at least 26 of the country’s 32 states, where women embraced the occupation of public buildings as a means of demanding justice.
Outrage is growing as the Mexican government registered more than 1,000 victims of femicide in 2021, as murder motivated by gender-based violence is typical, 2.66% more than in 2020.
