Thousands of Chilean women perform feminist anthem
SANTIAGO: Thousands of women gathered in one of Santiago’s main plazas on Wednesday and performed the feminist anthem A Rapist In Your Path to mark the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women - before Chilean police violently dispersed them.
Created by Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis and first performed in 2019, the song condemns men who attack women and is accompanied by dance moves.
Four members of Las Tesis led the performance, which has been copied and translated into different languages by women around the world.
The crowd was able to complete the performance only once before police deployed a water cannon to disperse the demonstrators from the Plaza Italia in downtown Santiago.
Las Tesis gained worldwide fame during Chilean demonstrations against economic disparity in 2019 with the street theatre performance.
In May, four masked members of the collective, dressed in red suits with a Chilean flag, appeared in front of a police station in Valparaiso while a female voice read a lyric attacking the cops, the Carabineros.
Earlier, women’s groups rallied in Santiago demanding an end to the male violence. Barricades were set on fire.
The demo was one of dozens around the world protesting violence against women, from Istanbul to Paris to Mexico City. The demonstrations were given new urgency by an alarming rise in violence targeting women around the world since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.