Sexist violence: MAS deputy insults his opposition colleague and she warns him with a process

The national government declared this 2022 as the Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization in order to establish activities dedicated to combating sexist violence. However, from the Government itself, attacks against women in politics and impunity against the aggressors became common.

Yesterday, Thursday, during the session of the Chamber of Deputies that was debating the bill of the General State Budget (PGE) 2023, the deputy of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Juan José Huanca verbally attacked his colleague from Comunidad Ciudadana (CC ) Samantha Nogales.

Huanca called her opposition colleague “chola de Camacho”, for which the legislator announced that she will prosecute him in the Ethics Commission. “They just told me that I am Camacho’s chola. You, a masista, macho man. What happens!”Nogales reacted.

Immediately, the opposition legislators – in a group – approached the front and, between shouts, asked the president of Deputies, Jerges Mercado (MAS) to withdraw Huanca.

However, Mercado minimized the fact and called for order in the room, allowing his pro-government colleague to remain for the rest of the session. Then, turning to Nogales, he said: “You have also disrespected us by calling us corrupt”.

In addition, the transmission of the Chamber of Deputies did not show the episode of the protest expressed by the women.

Huanca spoke briefly and without apologizing He said that he will assume his defense in the Ethics Commission. “With the respect that the sisters and brothers deserve, we are going to assume what is established in the statute in the Ethics Commission,” she said.

For his part, Nogales stated that Huanca’s aggression is also an insult against the women in skirts in the Lower House. “In this Parliament there are many women in skirts, my great-grandmother was in skirts. I apologize to those (women) on behalf of that macho and misogynist deputy who just told me that I am ‘Camacho’s chola’”.

They call Eva Copa “crazy”

On July 25, a speech by the Vice Minister of Government Coordination, Gustavo Torrico, During the inauguration of the “political and ideological training course” of the MAS in the city of El Alto, he called it “crazy” to the mayoress of that city, Eva Copa.

“If we were so committed to the MAS, excuse me for the phrase, Not even for whores would this crazy woman be the mayor of El Alto“Torrico said amid some applause, alluding to the Cup victory in the 2021 subnational elections.

This generated criticism and requests for the resignation of authority, but did not cause much repercussion within the MAS. Of course, the mayoress Eva Copa started a Criminal proceedings for the crimes of violence and political harassmentwhich so far has not made significant progress.

In October, according to Copa’s lawyer, Frank Campero, the vice minister would have changed his version, assuring that called former mayor Soledad Chapetón “crazy” and not so to Eva Copa, therefore, with this version there would be two victims in this case.

In 2020 Eva Copa was a candidate for the MAS, but by decision of the party leadership was displaced and replaced with Zacarías Maquera. Copa resigned from the MAS and ran for Jallalla La Paz and won the Mayor’s Office, so the MAS was relegated and it is something that they continue to regret.

Condemn protests in Iran

Following the wave of protests that erupted in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was first arrested by the morality police for not wearing a veil and later found dead in a hospital, the Bolivian ambassador to that country, Romina Pérez, assured that the Bolivian government, led by Luis Arce, condemned these feminist protests.

“Our government condemns the recent riots in Iran which are orchestrated by the British and American Zionists. We are sure that All problems will be solved with the solidarity and wisdom of the dear Leader of Iran”Pérez said in a meeting he had with the mayor of the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz on October 9.

Pérez’s words led to requests for resignation and sit-ins protest at the Iranian embassy in Bolivia by feminist activists to express their “solidarity” with the people and women of that country in the face of the repression of anti-government protests.

“This is not democracy (…) it is not a democratic regime for women and the great example of that are the statements of Romina Pérez, Bolivian ambassador to Iran, who endorses, applauds, minimizes state crimes by the Iranian regime to eliminate, to murder three young people to quell the revolt of Iranian women,” said activist María Galindo.

The same day of the verbal attack on Congresswoman Samantha Nogales, the Minister of the Presidency, Maria Nela Prada, In the award ceremony for the winners of the seventh call Letters and Images of the New Time “Resistance Women, Cultures, Memories and Struggles”, he assured that the patriarchy that still prevails in the country “will not fall, but will be knocked down”.

“We are sure that it will not be completed in a year, because this system will not end in this period.but based on our reality that many women suffer, we have an enormous responsibility that does not fall on the authorities but on all of us as a society, since the beginning of violence starts in families,” she said, according to the ABI news agency.