The discontent, the anger, the fury concentrated due to femicides, rapes and other aggressions committed by the police erupted onto the scene once again in the municipality of Chimalhuacán, State of Mexico.

In response to the arrest, torture and threats against Ms. Irene Martínez at the hands of the Chimalhuacán transit police on Friday, April 1, 2022, the women from some local groups who have woken up and are no longer silent in the face of so many crimes against women made a call through the networks to demand that she be released and to defend this family that had already suffered rape and threats by the police.

Three years ago, Ali, Irene’s 12-year-old daughter, was kidnapped and raped by Chimalhuacán police. In a mixed operation of the Mexican army, the state police and the municipal police, her father was arrested and she was left abandoned in the midst of pigs from these three entities. Seeing the girl isolated, the police did not miss the opportunity and put her in a patrol car where a commanding officer of the pigs began to grope her between the legs and touch her breasts and made lewd insults. They kidnapped her, took her to a safe house where she was drugged and gang raped by different police officers throughout the night. Irene called out the police and demanded justice, but as almost always happens, the terrible crime went unpunished and the police continue to hound the family.

This time the police arrested Irene accusing her of having stolen a motorcycle, although she showed them the papers that prove that it belongs to her. They took her away and kept her incommunicado for several hours. The young women activists, along with women fighters and mothers of femicide victims, Irinea Buendía and Lidia Florencio, staged a sit-in at the Chimalhuacán Public Prosecutor’s Office to demand that she be released. When Irene was released early on Saturday, April 2, she had signs of torture, she had been beaten and she had missing teeth. The women declared that they would continue the sit-in until the four traffic police officers responsible were arrested and punished: Three women agents and a man who is a commander.

On Saturday night, April 2, the prosecutor in gender affairs for the State of Mexico, Dylcia García Espinoza de los Monteros, arrived at the prosecutor’s office to “dialogue”, in order to dissolve the protest with promises. Faced with the firm demand of the activists that all the police officers involved in the attacks on Irene and their commanders should be arrested, the prosecutor withdrew and almost immediately cops began to viciously remove the protesters: Plainclothes policemen and other uniformed officers brutally attacked the activists with clubbing, beating and tear gas. They dropped a metal door on top of some activists, they beat others with clenched fists, they slammed some to the ground, and they split open the heads of at least two young women. They snatched the cell phones from the women who were filming to document the bloody police aggression. In a video, the collective “Las Tlahuelpuchis” states that when Dylcia García left, the police were given the signal to attack. They demand Garcia’s immediate removal from her position, as well as the removal of the Chimalhuacán prosecutor.

The three policewomen were arrested and charged with beating Irene, but they are free while facing trial and may or may not ever be sentenced. They have not touched the commander. Activists continue to demand justice, now supported by women in Toluca, Mexico City and elsewhere in Mexico.

According to the Chimalhuacán municipal government, the police and the National Guard acted as is proper: “Regarding the acts of vandalism committed last night by a group of 40 feminists against the facilities of the Public Ministry... the Commissioner states that agents of the Municipal Police and the National Guard went there to protect the physical integrity of seven detainees and all the personnel of the Public Ministry of Chimalhuacán and transfer them to a safe place, while the situation was pacified.”

This situation is not an isolated act of gender violence, nor is it the only one in this municipality or elsewhere. This is the daily violence of a patriarchal system that is always operating so that the relations of submission towards women and the stability of its system remain afloat. They mobilize all their institutions of oversight and repressive forces to try to put out this just struggle against patriarchal oppression, which has existed for thousands of years, but now can and needs to be eliminated.

Currently the participation of women in different spheres of society has been gaining strength, but it is also accompanied by more attacks against women such as rapes and femicides, already with more than 10 women murdered daily throughout Mexico. The functioning of the capitalist system, and the struggle of women, have brought about changes that have nurtured the struggle and strengthened the basis to put an end to male supremacy. But the very functioning of capitalism, its economic, political and social relations, the ideas and culture that predominate, and all the institutions that defend and reinforce all this is also the obstacle that prevents the liberation of women and of all humanity.

No cosmetic change, no reforms within this system can get rid of this scourge. We already see this in this same municipality: Neither the previous Antorchist governments nor the current Morena followers¹ fight patriarchy and instead defend violence against women, because these official political groups and parties are part of this system. They exist to enforce patriarchy and to make sure that women (and other oppressed people) do not get out of control and that this intolerable “social order” is kept afloat. That is why the false “hope” (Morena) dared to repress these brave women who, even knowing that they were likely to be repressed, exclaimed, “We will not leave until they arrest the commander and the police officers who arrested and tortured Irene!”

We need the fury, anger and combative struggle of women to keep moving forward and become a driving force of the revolutionary movement to overthrow this patriarchal capitalist system with a communist revolution, which is the only thing that can unleash the revolutionary potential of women to eliminate patriarchal relations, foster women’s organization and full participation, as human beings, not as things, in the future socialist society that will open the way for the new communist society throughout the world.

Punish the Police Officers who Tortured Irene Martínez, Kidnapped and Raped Her Daughter Ali, and Beat Up Women Activists!

Unleash the Strength and Anger of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!

Download the pdf of this article in Spanish at: Chimalhuacan.pdf.

Aurora Roja
Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico

aurora-roja.blogspot.com | auroraroja.mx@gmail.com

Posted by Aurora Roja