The last few years of María Elena Ríos have been a real ordeal. In 2019, the saxophonist was attacked with acid, allegedly on the orders of her former partner, former PRI deputy Juan Antonio Vera Carrizal. She was 27 years old, he was 56. She was a student and worked in an office to manage visas; he was a powerful gas station businessman with great influence in Oaxaca. Since that fateful day when the acid burned her body, Elena Ríos has not stopped demanding justice and fighting for these types of attacks to be considered attempted femicides throughout the country. Four states have already approved this new law, dubbed the ‘Malena Law’. Among them is Oaxaca, where she is from. However, almost five years after the attack, justice has not come for María Elena Ríos.
She has faced a process riddled with irregularities, institutional abuse and constant threats towards her and her family that forced her to flee her home. The last chapter of this horrific story has just been written this week. A local judge decided to acquit and release both Vera Carrizal and the alleged perpetrators. Hours later and, after the media scandal, a control judge revoked the sentence and ordered Vera Carrizal and the rest to remain in prison. “It fills me with hope, it gives me a ray of light, not only to me, but to all the women, children, victims who have not been able to remain silent and who, of course, will not have the comfort of our silence,” said Ríos through her social networks.
The Oaxaca Prosecutor’s Office identified five men involved in the attempted murder of the saxophonist, including Vera Carrizal and her son, Juan Antonio Vera Hernández, a fugitive from justice to date. Both are linked as alleged masterminds. The investigation also identified three other subjects: Ponciano ‘N’, who died in strange circumstances in prison, Ruvicel Hernández and Rubén Loaiza, alias The Charlesaccused of committing the attack. They declared that they received 30,000 pesos (1,500 dollars) for throwing the acid.
Vera Carrizal sought protection after the attack, however, in 2020 and after strong media pressure, the former deputy turned himself in to the Prosecutor’s Office. Without handcuffs and with a broad smile, he entered the Public Prosecutor’s Office on his own two feet, escorted by several agents. Since then, precautionary measures have been imposed on him and he has remained in preventive detention in the Tanivet prison, Oaxaca.
The revocation of the sentence by the control court of Huajuapan de León renders the decision of Judge José Gabriel Ramírez Montaño invalid. In turn, the Superior Court of Justice of Oaxaca said it has opened an investigation for the crime of prevarication against Judge Ramírez Montaño.
In Mexico, more than 95% of crimes against women are never solved and only a small part of them reach the courts. Of these, less than 3% result in a conviction. These types of attacks target hatred and discrimination against women in Mexico. Acid violence is a type of premeditated violence that occurs as a form of punishment or revenge. The aggressors intend to disfigure or injure the victim, causing irreversible damage or disability. However, in many parts of the country, attacking a person with acid is only considered an aggravating factor in a crime of injury, punishable by many fewer years in prison than an attempted femicide.
The figures for acid crimes in Mexico are not encouraging. 94% of these attacks go unpunished and they make discrimination and hatred towards women a reality. Most of the victims are completely unprotected. 80% of the victims are women, according to figures from the Carmen Sánchez Foundation. Most of them were perpetrated by a man, a partner or ex-partner of the women attacked.
Victims of acid violence are afraid that their attackers will end up killing them, as María Elena Ríos herself stated in an interview with this newspaper in 2023. “I am afraid that my attacker will finish what he started and kill me.” This type of sexist violence, in most cases, affects the physical and mental health of the victim and has serious social consequences such as job loss and rejection by the family environment. Ríos has undergone more than 20 very painful and expensive operations to recover her body and face. Little by little she has regained mobility and has returned to playing the saxophone.
The case of María Elena Ríos perfectly illustrates the abandonment by the State suffered by the victims; on the other hand, her struggle inspires thousands of women not to give up and to continue fighting for their rights. However, pessimism hangs in the air. If cases as emblematic as that of the Oaxacan saxophonist are not capable of making a difference in women’s access to justice, what remains for the rest of the victims is a bleak panorama.
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