Hundreds of women demonstrated this past weekend, in different parts of the country, to repudiate the sexual violence of which they are victims, condemn impunity in cases of aggression and honor the victims of femicides, such as Allison Bonilla, whose murderer confessed the homicide Friday.
The voices of indignation were heard in the streets of San Pedro (San José), San Ramón (Alajuela), Cartago and Golfito (Puntarenas). Dressed in black, in mourning for the Bonilla femicide, the protesters marched along Paseo Colón and Second Avenue with chants of repudiation of violence against women. The protest in the capital culminated in a rally at the Fuente de La Hispanidad, in San Pedro de Montes de Oca.
“I came simply because I don’t want to be invisible. All the women who have been killed hurt me,” Dayanna Umaña, a 29-year-old neighbor from Sabanilla de Montes de Oca, declared.
For her part, Heidy Valencia, leader of the feminist organization Las Rojas, explained that the mobilizations were called by another group called Feminist Bruges, but that other associations like hers were added to the call, to the point that they received reports of demonstrations in Cartago, San Ramón, Liberia and Golfito, among others, she detailed
“The call was very prompt but it hit the key, at the sensitive point of enormous discontent and much indignation, particularly with the case of Allison, who is still missing, but that’s good, we already know that the suspect in her case confessed that he had sexually attacked and that he had murdered her, “the spokeswoman said.
However, Valencia indicated that the protesters also criticized the proceedings of the Judicial Investigation Body (OIJ) and recent resolutions of the Courts of Justice, when it comes to addressing the murders of women:”There are also cases that have been accumulating discontent because there could be a risk that the femicides remain in impunity, such as that of María Trinidad, the Mexican tourist who was raped and murdered in Santa Teresa de Cóbano, and it is also the case of Andrea Fernández , that an appeals court reconsidered lowering the sentence”, the activist.
Numerous participation
The National Police reported through its press office, that about 1,000 people – mostly women – gathered in Torre Mercedes, in Paseo Colón, from where they walked to the Fuente de La Hispanidad . At that site, “some acts of unrest” were identified – the communications department pointed out without specifying – without the need for arrests. Throughout the protest, the participants demanded justice and sang with one voice: “Not one less, long live we love each other!”
The protests in Cartago and San Ramón were concentrated on the outskirts of the courts of justice, on whose walls, doors and gates were they placed postersthat read “We are the cry of those who are no longer here”, “Are you tired of hearing it? We live it! “ or “I want to be free and without fear”, among others.
