Volatile protests engulfed the capital of Mexico on Monday when police clashed with thousands of feminist activists to put an end to what they say is a violent crisis against women here.
On Mexico City’s central square, known as the Zócalo, police protesters shed tears that violated the city’s office buildings and used crowbars and hammers to break down parts of a 12-foot-high steel barrier surrounding the National Palace, the center of federal Mexico, was erected government and the home of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. According to authorities, at least 62 police officers and 19 civilians were injured.
“We protect your daughters and your sisters,” women chanted to the officers.
The protests, part of a series of feminist marches held internationally on International Women’s Day, come amid a scandal that bitterly divided Mexico and his ruling party spoke out against its increasingly visible feminist leaders.
Women across the country have been demanding for weeks that the party, Morena, should drop their support for a government candidate accused by five women of sexual assault.
López Obrador stands by the candidate, Senator Félix Salgado Macedonio, and repeatedly accuses the accusers of nothing more than biased political attacks. “That’s enough now!” said the president at a recent news conference in response to questions about the allegations.
The president’s defense of Salgado asserted himself contrary to female leaders in his own party and the feminist movement of the country, which has become perhaps the most organized opposition force López Obrador has faced since winning a landslide in 2018.
Women have been protesting against violence in Mexico for decades, including in the 1990s, when they mobilized to address the killings of hundreds of women in the border town of Juarez.
But the feminist movement has become increasingly visible in recent years, thanks in part to a more militant younger generation willing to degrade property to draw attention to what it sees as an epidemic of gender-based violence in Mexico, where an average of 11 women are killed every day.
This past spring, after a series of particularly gruesome murders in Mexico City that included the murder of a 7-year-old girl, tens of thousands of women took to the streets in a historic march that ended in clashes between police and protesters, which covered some of the country’s most iconic monuments with pink and purple graffiti.
A few months later, some of the same activist groups that organized the march took control of Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and ripped paintings of revolutionary heroes off the walls, declaring that the building would become a shelter for female victims of violence.
Fearing similar actions during this year’s march, police set up protective barriers in the Zócalo around large government buildings over the weekend. Within hours, activists covered the barriers with the names of women killed by violence. Nearby, around a large flagpole, they paste photos of men who they believe are rapists.
Early Monday afternoon, the square filled with protesters, many of whom wore the green bandannas that in recent years have become the symbol of the preferred movement in Latin America.
“Stop this patriarchal system!” shouted the women as they burned a pile of rubbish containing plastic riot screens they had picked up from police.
One woman, 26-year-old Fernanda Grostieta, wore a large banner with the photo of a beautiful teenage girl with short hair and glasses. “Did you see her?” read the poster.
Grostieta said the young woman, a schoolmate of hers, disappeared four years ago after she complained about domestic abuse by her romantic partner. Grostieta believes he killed her.
The issue of violence against women is not abstract. She said, “For all of us, it’s personal.”
The allegations against Salgado were made public last fall when it became clear that he would be the candidate for governor in the state of Guerrero for Morena, a center-left party founded by López Obrador.
Among the accused is a woman who told police in 2016 that Salgado drugged and raped her. According to her, Salgado recorded a video of the first attack and used it as extortion to rape her at least twice more. Another woman, a Morena activist and longtime supporter of López Obrador, told police Salgado raped her in 1998 when she was 17 years old.
Salgado Macedonia is not charged with any crime. He denies the allegations.
In a letter to party leaders last month, some of Morena’s most prominent female officials urged the party to drop its support for Salgado, a move that some analysts say is showing the growing influence of feminist street protests.
Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City office contributed to this report.