Merida, Yucatan — An employee of the state prosecutor’s office was fired after posting hate speech against women, officials there said.
The Prosecutor General of the State of Yucatan relieved Fausto Enrique Loría Ortiz from duties after he was found suggesting on Facebook that Friday’s female protestors should be burned.
Screen grabs of the post were shared widely on social media, and complaints quickly reached the governor’s office.
“How do you expect us to go to the State Attorney General’s Office to denounce the things that happen to us if the people who work there suggest that they set us on fire?!?!!!” one woman wrote.
Yucatan officials reacted swiftly.
“The state government is strictly against any type of violence against women and will not allow expressions such as those carried out by Loría Ortiz,” reads a statement from the governor’s office.
The remarks “contravene the vision and values of the present state administration and that will not be accepted or tolerated,” according to the statement.
En #Yucatán no toleramos la violencia contra las mujeres. Los comentarios en redes de Fausto Enrique Loría Ortíz, empleado de la @fgeyucatan, contravienen con los valores de nuestro gobierno. He dado la instrucción de que sea dado de baja inmediatamente de su cargo.
— Mauricio Vila (@MauVila) August 19, 2019
Gov. Mauricio Vila said he personally discharged Loría Ortiz.
The protests, while strident, were peaceful in Merida. But in Mexico City, the energy was more raucous. The iconic Angel of Independence monument was defaced with graffiti by protestors Friday.
The protests nationwide stem from a string of alleged rapes by police. Women accused city officials of not adequately investigating the rape accusations.
The demonstrations have become known as the “glitter protests” after marchers doused the Mexico City’s police chief in pink glitter. In Merida, a man who confronted the protestors met the same fate.