Well, well, well. What have we here? A couple of hooligans, natch. But these are not just any soccer-stadium creeps. These guys have some pretty high connections in Mexican government:
Four Mexican soccer fans face a sentence of up to eight years in Brazilian prison for aggressively touching the private parts of a Fortaleza lawyer’s wife, and later assaulting her companion, who tried to defend her, according to the Military Police of Ceará state.
Among the detainees are Sergio Israel Eguren Cornejo and Rafael Miguel Medina Pederzini, former assembly members of the PAN party, as well as Angel Rimak Eguren Cornejo and Mateo Codinas Velten.
Sergio Eguren Cornejo and Rafael Medina are currently members of the Directive Council of the PAN in the Federal District. Medina is also a member of the Benito Juárez delegation.
The incident occurred on Monsenhor Tabosa Avenue, close to the Fan Fest located near Iracema Beach, around the time the Mexican team was eliminated by the Dutch following a controversial decision.
According to a press bulletin from the state of Ceará, Pederzini and Eguren tried to escape after the fact. The aggressors did not get away, as they were detained by citizens and soldiers.
According to Brazilian law, the Mexican assailants must face justice in Brazil. If they are sentenced, diplomatic channels could be opened for them to serve their time in Mexican prisons.
Translation mine.
The PAN is Mexico’s mainline right-wing party. So this is a big embarrassment for Enrique Peña Nieto and his government, of course. It’s also a big black eye for diplomatic relations between Mexico and Brazil.
More than that, though, it’s emblematic of the way men in power treat women in general, and women from outside their national and social milieu in particular. Conservative men, in particular, are real perverts that way. They, more than anyone, see themselves as above the law and entitled to any woman they can buy or just lay hands on. And Brazilian women, as I posted the other day, have a huge sexist stereotype working against them, so they are especially vulnerable right now.
In this case, at least, the woman’s social status will help her somewhat. She’s a lawyer’s wife, meaning she’s surely a lot better off than most of the Brazilian women and girls who are being sexually attacked by locals and foreigners while the World Cup is on and aggressions run high. Poverty and low social status mean that most of the rapes and sexual assaults occurring during the tourney will go unreported and unremarked, especially among the prostituted (most of whom are extremely poor). Access to legal aid is difficult, if not impossible, for them. After all, you can’t expect much justice if you don’t have the money to hire a lawyer…or better still, a lawyer for your spouse.
One small correction. Enrique Peña Nieto is PRI, not PAN. PAN is to the right of PRI. I do have to give PAN a little credit for expelling these guys from the Party… but that seems to be in response to their dissing party leaders on twitter more than sexual harrassment and general idiocy.
Whoops…fixed that.
Wish I could find the picture, but out in Marathon there was a lady with a “Welcome Illegal Aliens” sign in her yard… the “aliens” being the kind you usually expect to find in Roswell New Mexico, natch.
I’m sure that whether legal or not, any aliens that would make their way to this world must at least be smarter than the “present proper papers or go back where you came from” people.
Of course, the fact that none have come to stay means that they ARE smarter. They took one look at that and went “NOPE!”