Women alleged sex abuse by Mexican police

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's human rights agency said Tuesday it has filed complaints with prosecutors after nearly two dozen women claimed they were raped or sexually abused by police following a violent protest.

The allegations are the most serious to arise against police -- frequently accused of corruption and violence -- during the administration of President Vicente Fox, said Guillermo Ibarra, coordinator-general of projects and communication for the Mexican National Human Rights Commission.

He said seven women reported that they were raped and 16 others, including three foreign nationals, said they were sexually abused by police who detained them after violent clashes last week in the town of San Salvador Atenco.

Ibarra said his government panel has filed criminal complaints with the attorney general's office in the central state of Mexico, where local, state and federal police officers have been accused by the women in the alleged abuses.

Emanuel Avila, spokesman for the Interior Department of Mexico State, where the town is located, said that "none of the women in detention who were purportedly sexually abused, none of them has filed a formal complaint nor have they allowed medical examinations" to test for evidence of rape.

Mexico State Police Chief Wilfrido Robledo denied the allegations in comments to local media, saying they were part of a strategy by detainees' lawyers to make police look bad. He could not be reached by The Associated Press for comment Tuesday.

Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said if police committed crimes authorities must act "with the full force of the law."

The women who lodged the rape and abuse charges were among more than 200 people taken into custody last week in San Salvador Atenco, where members of a radical group kidnapped and beat six policemen after they tried to prevent flower vendors from setting up stands in a nearby city.

Television images showed an aggressive police response the next day with angry officers clubbing detainees in the town, located 15 miles northeast of Mexico City.

Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos said Tuesday in an interview with Mexico's Televisa network that Mexico was in a state of rage over the police crackdown in the town, which also left a teenager dead and scores injured.

Marcos denied allegations that the Zapatistas instigated the clash, and said the attack against the police stemmed from "people's fury."

The rebel leader came out of his jungle hideout in January and is touring Mexico trying to forge a national leftist movement.

Two of the women who claimed they were sexually abused, but not raped, are Spaniards, while the third is from Chile, Ibarra said. All were deported for allegedly violating the terms of their tourist visas.

"They insulted me, groped me, anything they wanted," the Chilean, who identified herself as cinematography student Valentina Palma, was quoted by the daily La Jornada newspaper as saying.

Palma said she and other detainees were forced to walk through a gauntlet of police officers who kicked them as they passed.

Ibarra said both the commission and state police had appointed doctors to examine the women who remained in Mexico, but that more than half of the alleged victims so far have refused.