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MEXICO CITY — An Worldwide Girls’s Day rally in Mexico on Tuesday drew 1000’s of protesters, with throngs marching in opposition to violence and streaming previous the presidential palace and nationwide monuments within the capital that had been cordoned off with enormous steel fences amid fears of unrest.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been accused of not doing sufficient to stem the rise in femicides, urged calm whereas warning that the protests may flip violent.
The Mexico Metropolis police stated that they had seized Molotov cocktails, weapons reminiscent of bats and hammers and fireworks from protesters within the afternoon. Native information media reported that two protesters had been injured after swinging at a glass bus cease, which got here crashing down on high of them.
The authorities had erected a protecting steel barrier across the Nationwide Palace, the seat of presidency the place the presidential household lives, and different historic buildings forward of the protests.
Later Tuesday night time, video footage shared on-line confirmed a blaze on the door of the federal government palace in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León state, after marchers entered the constructing, based on native information experiences. There was no quick official affirmation of any injury. Anti-riot law enforcement officials and firefighters have been deployed to the location.
Protesters wrote, “MEXICO FEMICIDE” in towering white letters on the black steel cordon in entrance of the Nationwide Palace, which faces the Zocalo foremost sq., the stage for a lot of main demonstrations.
Final yr, ladies marching on Worldwide Girls’s Day additionally clashed with the police at barricades surrounding the Nationwide Palace. Protesters tried to tear down a steel wall put in to guard authorities property from vandalism, prompting officers to fireside pepper spray.
Mexico recorded 969 femicides final yr, up barely from 949 in 2020, based on authorities figures. Activists say the true figures are more than likely a lot greater, and a few estimate that 10 ladies a day are killed due to their gender.
A bunch of protesters chanted, “Girls united, won’t ever be defeated,” as they arrived close to the Nationwide Palace on Tuesday, waving white flags. Others, sporting purple bandanas for the area’s feminist motion or inexperienced in assist of abortion rights, marched down certainly one of Mexico Metropolis’s foremost avenues holding banners and posters with feminist slogans.
Frida Moreno, 21, a scholar who stated that abusive lecturers had scarred her upbringing, stated she believed she had an obligation to march in order that different younger women could be spared related experiences.
“Though I really feel privileged as a result of I reside in a secure space, nobody can assure that at some point I can’t disappear,” stated Ms. Moreno, on the verge of tears.
Mr. López Obrador, who appointed ladies to half his cupboard posts, has rejected claims by activists that he’s not concerned about tackling femicides, saying that progress has been made to defend ladies’s rights.
Requested on Tuesday morning if the protests may change into violent, as one authorities official had predicted, the president nodded.
“There’s infiltration of the feminist motion basically by conservative teams,” he stated, noting that it was fallacious “to make use of violence for political functions.”
The Mexico Metropolis authorities had stated it might deploy dozens of paramedics in addition to an all-female police drive.
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