Demand for Inquiry Into Police Abuse of Women May Embroil Mexico's President Azam Ahmed - The New York Times
go to original September 22, 2016

The Women of Atenco (Kerri MacDonald)

International human rights officials are demanding an investigation into the brutal sexual assaults of 11 Mexican women during protests a decade ago — an inquiry that would take aim at President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was the governor in charge at the time of the attacks.

The demand is part of a multiyear examination by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights into abuses during a 2006 crackdown ordered by Mr. Peña Nieto on San Salvador Atenco, a town in Mexico State where demonstrators had taken over the central square. During the operations, which left two dead, more than 40 women were violently detained by the police, packed onto buses and sent to jail several hours away.

The case was brought by 11 women to the international commission, which found that the police tortured them sexually. The women — a mix of merchants, students and activists — were raped, beaten, penetrated with metal objects, robbed and humiliated, made to sing aloud to entertain the police. One was forced to perform oral sex on multiple officers. After the women were imprisoned, days passed before they were given proper medical examinations, the commission found.

“I have not overcome it, not even a little,” said one of the women, Maria Patricia Romero Hernández, weeping. “It is something that haunts me and you don’t survive. It stays with you.”

For Mr. Peña Nieto, the human rights commission’s call for an investigation is another blow to a presidency under siege. Corruption scandals and continued violence have already dragged his approval ratings to the lowest of any Mexican president in a quarter-century. His invitation of Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate reviled in Mexico for his statements critical of Mexican immigrants, plunged his administration even further into controversy.

The assaults are also a reminder of countless other cases in the country that remain unresolved, including the haunting disappearance of 43 college students two years ago. International officials contend that the investigation into that case was actively undermined by Mr. Peña Nieto’s government.

Read the rest at The New York Times | Leer en español

Related: The Women of Atenco: These Are the 11 Plaintiffs — and Their Words (The New York Times)

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