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| Brazilians protest in front of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro on Friday against an alleged gang rape that police say they are investigating. |
Brazilian police on Friday were investigating the gang-rape
of a 16-year-old girl whose attackers boasted about it by posting an online
video that has horrified the country.
Online social networks erupted with outrage over the video
posted on Wednesday featuring the girl naked on a bed and the apparent rapists
bragging that she had been raped by more than 30 men.
They are suspected of assaulting her on May 21 in Rio de
Janeiro, a city stricken by violent crime and which will host the Olympic Games
in August.
The authorities have
promised to bring the men to justice.
“Those who committed this heinous crime will be found, will
be imprisoned and condemned,” Justice Minister Alexandre de Morais told a news
conference in Rio Friday night.
Police have identified four of the men suspected of taking a
“direct or indirect” part in the rape or the posting of the video, Rio police
chief Fernando Veloso told reporters.
“We cannot say whether there were 30 attackers, 33 or 36.
The investigations will determine that,” he said.
Brazil’s acting president Michel Temer and other senior
figures reacted with outrage.
“I condemn most forcefully the rape of the teenager in Rio
de Janeiro,” he wrote on Twitter.
“It is absurd that in the 21st century we should have to
live with barbaric crimes such as this.”
The authorities are working “to find those responsible and
rigorously punish the authors of this rape and the publishing of this criminal
act on social networks,” he said.
The UN women’s rights agency condemned the case along with
another recent alleged gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl in the northeastern
state of Piaui.
“Apart from the fact that these are young women, these
barbaric cases are similar in that the teenagers were lured by their attackers
in premeditated plots,” UN Women in Brazil spokeswoman Nadine Gasman said on
Thursday.
“They were violently attacked in a context of illegal drug
use.”
Brazilian police recorded a sexual assault in the country
every 11 minutes in 2014, the Brazilian non-governmental organization Public
Safety Forum said in a study, estimating that half a million such assaults take
place overall each year.
“This case is not unusual,” said Luise Bello, spokeswoman
for women’s rights group Think Olga, of the Rio gang-rape.
“The culture of rape is very strong in Brazil. It is part of
our daily life, although people deny it.”
Top officials were meeting to discuss new measures to stop
violence against women, Temer said.
He took over as
interim president earlier this month from suspended leftist leader Dilma
Rousseff, who faces an impeachment trial for allegedly fiddling government
accounts.
Rousseff, Brazil’s
first female president, also expressed outrage over the Rio case.
“Once more I reiterate my condemnation of violence against
women,” she wrote on Facebook.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in downtown Rio Friday
night waving signs saying “Machismo Kills” and “No means no.”
In Sao Paulo, protesters erected a mural with messages
including “My body is not yours,” and “I like to wear necklines, that’s not an
invitation to rape me.”
-AFP
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