San Simón Zahuatlán, population 3,500, where just 70 seniors agreed to a Covid shot.
Covid vaccination brigades throughout Mexico are vaccinating seniors and in some states, demand is such that seniors have had to line up for hours for their shot.
But that wasn’t the case in two Oaxaca municipalities, where seniors decided en masse not to get the CanSino vaccine.
In San Simón Zahuatlán, seniors decided in a community assembly not to go for the vaccination, despite information provided by authorities about the safety of the shot.
The vaccination brigade administered shots to only 70 people. Only four coronavirus cases have been recorded in Zahuatlán.
Similarly, seniors in Santiago Texcalcingo opted out, with only 15 people deciding to get vaccinated out of 400 who were eligible. The area has had just one case of Covid-19 to date.
As of Friday, 10.52 million seniors had received at least one dose nationwide, according to the Ministry of Health.
Deputy Saúl Huerta is now facing a second accusation.
President López Obrador has spoken out on a sexual abuse case involving a Morena party lawmaker, something he has been reluctant to do in other recent accusations against members of his party.
The president said victims should present their claims for investigation in response to questions about a federal deputy who was accused of drugging and assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Saúl Huerta was arrested for the alleged assault but released through his immunity as a lawmaker. The boy, who worked for Huerta, said the deputy assaulted him this week in a Mexico City hotel room. The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office said it would seek to have the immunity removed if there was sufficient evidence.
Huerta said he is an innocent victim of an extortion attempt.
President López Obrador had previously remained quiet when lawmakers in his party, including two gubernatorial candidates, were accused of sexual assault. When specifically asked about the allegations against Huerta, the president said he condemned sexual abuse and the affected parties should present their complaints to authorities for investigation.
Carolina Beauregard, the opposition candidate for Huerta’s seat in Congress in the June 6 elections, said the full weight of the law should be applied if Huerta is found guilty.
The president’s statement comes after Ignacio Mier Velasco, the legislative leader of Morena in the lower house, said the alleged assault occurred in the lawmaker’s “private life” and was not related to his legislative work, a comment that triggered a public outcry. Mier later stated on Twitter that he rejected any attack on a minor.
As a result of the accusations, Huerta withdrew his candidacy for reelection.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Mexico City said another accusation was made against Huerta on Friday. A 20-year-old man says he was sexually assaulted by him three years ago in San Francisco Totimehuacan, Puebla.
The HIPGive campaign will support nonprofit organizations in Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán.
Between the pandemic and two powerful tropical storms, it has been a tough year on the Yucatán Peninsula. In response, a crowdfunding platform called HIPGive.org has created a donation matching campaign for nonprofit organizations working on rural development in Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán.
The campaign is providing 1.5 million pesos (US $75,600) to match crowdfunded donations for a variety of small nonprofits. The initiative, known as #TierrasMayas, seeks to make 2021 “year of opportunities … to rebuild and redouble efforts toward more equitable development and shared prosperity in the region,” according to a press release.
Before the #TierrasMayas campaign, HIPGive provided select organizations with online training and guidance in crowdfunding and fundraising practices. The first stage of the campaign took place in November 2020 and matched more than 500,000 pesos in donations made to 15 nonprofits.
This year on May 6 and 27, HIPGive will match 1.2 million pesos, the largest sum of matching donations currently available in Mexico, the organization said.
The campaign will also offer additional funds to the organizations with the highest number of individual donors.
“This reflects the premise of #TierrasMayas: ‘we can all be philanthropists’ and the open invitation for more people to join the campaign through making a donation online. Supporting #TierrasMayas means investing in the reconstruction and resilience of rural communities on the Yucatán Peninsula, improving their living standards and boosting economic development. Through the crowdfunding model a small contribution, made by many people, can make a difference in an entire community.”
HIPGive.org is the digital branch of Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP), a network of donors whose goal is to strengthen Latin communities in the Americas, and calls itself “the first and only crowdfunding platform, focused on promoting Latin social impact projects and promoting generosity in the Americas …”
According to the HIP website, only 6.3% of U.S. foundation funding for international causes went to Latin America in 2014 and 2015. Of that, just 36% went directly to Latin American organizations.
“Traditional philanthropy has left many Latin nonprofits out, and few tools exist to facilitate investment by Latinos in the causes they care about. That leaves a critical gap.”
Since April 2014, over $3.6 million has been channeled to more than 1,000 Latin-focused nonprofits on HIPGive, the organization says.
The number of green light low risk states will fall to six from eight on Monday after the federal Health Ministry presented an updated coronavirus stoplight map on Friday.
There will be 20 yellow light medium risk states during the next two weeks, an increase of one compared to the map currently in effect, and six orange light high risk states, also an increase of one. For the fifth consecutive fortnight there will be no red light maximum risk states.
Each stoplight color, determined by the Health Ministry using 10 different indicators including case numbers and hospital occupancy levels, is accompanied by recommended restrictions to slow the spread of the virus but it is ultimately up to state governments to decide on their own restrictions.
The green light states between April 26 and May 9 will be Chiapas, Campeche, Coahuila, Veracruz, Jalisco and Guanajuato. The first four states are already green while Jalisco and Guanajuato will switch from yellow because their coronavirus situations have improved.
The yellow light states will be Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Durango, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Colima, Michoacán, Tlaxcala, Guerrero, Morelos, Puebla, Querétaro, Oaxaca, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, México state and Yucatán.
The first 14 states are already yellow, Oaxaca, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and Nayarit will switch from green after the Health Ministry deemed that their risk level has increased and México state and Yucatán will advance from orange due to an improved coronavirus situation.
México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo said Friday that hospital occupancy levels had decreased in the state, which has recorded the second highest number of coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths among the 32 states after Mexico City.
Businesses in the state, which includes many municipalities that are part of the Mexico City metropolitan area, will be permitted to extend their opening hours and increase capacity starting Monday.
“It’s important to say that even though we’ve progressed a lot, we are still at risk of infection. The yellow stoplight means that we still have a latent risk,” del Mazo said.
Coronavirus restrictions will also ease in Yucatán on Monday due to that state’s switch to yellow, while Querétaro authorities relaxed rules on Friday after they, contrary to the federal Health Ministry, deemed that the risk level had declined.
Businesses in Querétaro were permitted to extend their opening hours and capacity levels until at least May 9 due to the state’s shift to so-called Scenario A restrictions, while the Corregidora stadium will be allowed to fill to 30% of capacity for this Sunday’s Liga MX soccer match between Querétaro F.C. and F.C. Juárez. Social events of up to 200 people are also now permitted in the state.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Health authorities warned citizens to not drop their guard and remain alert to the risk of infection during the Scenario A period.
The six orange light states during the next two weeks will be Mexico City, Chihuahua, Baja California Sur, Hidalgo, Tabasco and Quintana Roo. The first three states are already orange while the last three will switch from yellow.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the capital – Mexico’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic – is very close to switching to medium risk yellow. In fact, there is a chance that Mexico City authorities will announce a downgrade to the risk level next Friday, which would take effect the following Monday.
“We’re still on the orange light but we’re calling next week’s stoplight ‘toward yellow,’” said government official Eduard Clark.
There are still more than 9,000 estimated active cases in Mexico City but new infections are on the wane, Clark said.
The capital has recorded almost 635,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 41,472 Covid-19 fatalities, figures that respectively account for 27.3% and 19.3% of Mexico’s accumulated case tally and official death toll.
The national case tally currently stands at 2.32 million while the official death toll is 214,504, although the federal government has acknowledged that the real number of Covid-19 fatalities is well above 300,000. There are 27,615 active cases across the country, according to Health Ministry estimates.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell reported at Friday night’s coronavirus press briefing that 397,292 Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered on Friday, pushing the total number of doses given to 15.87 million. Most of the shots have gone to health workers and seniors, although the number of vaccinated teachers is now rising quickly as authorities seek to reopen schools more than a year after they closed.
As of Friday night, Mexico had received 21.61 million doses of five vaccines – Pfizer, AstraZeneca, SinoVac, Sputnik V and CanSino – meaning that about three-quarters of those delivered have been used.
Women protesting gender violence in Cuernavaca, Morelos.
Women in Morelos are now legally permitted to carry a range of nonlethal defensive weapons such as retractable batons, pepper spray and tasers.
The state Congress passed a reform to the criminal code that allows women to carry such weapons last December, but the law wasn’t promulgated until last week.
Morena party Deputy Ariadna Barrera Vázquez presented the bill, arguing that it was necessary because violence against women, including sexual assaults, is on the rise in Morelos, a small state located immediately south of Mexico City.
She presented 2018 data that showed that more than 82% of women felt unsafe in the state, up from 74.7% in 2013. There were 84 femicides in Morelos last year, and at least 10 in the first three months of 2021.
“Violence against women is a reality, … I dare to say that 10 out of 10 women have been victims of some kind of gender violence,” Barrera said in the Congress.
Another indicator of the situation Morelos women face is that a gender alert — which indicates high levels of violence against women — has been active in eight of the state’s 36 municipalities, including Cuernavaca, since 2015.
Allowing women to carry weapons of self-defense gives them a “greater feeling of security,” according to the reform. Access to nonlethal weapons allows women to protect themselves in the face of an attack or act of aggression that threatens their physical integrity or even their lives, it says.
Prior to the reform taking effect, possession of nonlethal weapons such as pepper spray and tasers for self-defense purposes was punishable by imprisonment of up to three years.
Barrera pointed out that the minimum term for a person convicted of sexual assault is two years. Therefore, she said, a woman who used pepper spray on a man assaulting her could theoretically go to prison for longer than her aggressor.
The legalization of women’s right to carry nonlethal weapons in Morelos was not well received by some women’s groups, the newspaper El Universal reported. One such group is Huitzitzilin, which defends the rights of women and children.
President Ana Carina Chumacero said that a better idea would be to provide education aimed at reducing violence to society in general. She also said that women would feel safer if police knew how to respond in cases of gender violence.
“I believe there are a lot of tools that we could use to build peace” instead of arming women, Chumacero said.
Charlie, a guest and trainee at Club Canino, takes a rest after a session on how to be a good boy.
“Birds fly, bears growl and dogs bark. That’s how things are!”
This seems to be the favorite refrain of dog owners in Mexico when neighbors complain about the noise.
I may tend to believe it in regards to birds and bears, but when it comes to dogs my mind immediately goes back to many, many delightful episodes of the TV series The Dog Whisperer, where I sat in open-eyed wonder watching Mexican-born César Millán perform what truly seemed like miracles, over and over. The mild-mannered, unflappable Leader of the Pack would knock on a door, and when it opened we would be introduced to the meanest four-legged monster that ever trampled upon the surface of the earth. Then we would meet the dog’s owners: trembling, distraught and frequently bleeding from their ogre’s latest love bite.
César would simply smile and, explaining that this dog was just “out of balance,” would then make an unexpected little sound like psst! — which had the most extraordinary effect upon the poor creature. By the end of the show, the unbalanced monster had turned into a perfectly normal, well-behaved pet, its owners staring in wide-eyed amazement and gratitude at the wonderful change.
“So why does my community sound like a dog pound every night?” I asked myself. “And why have my friends and I all received dog bites? Haven’t my neighbors learned the power of a psst?”
Guillermo “Memo” Ortiz at his computer, where he keep tabs on his doggy guests in their hotel “suites.” Owners can follow along via smartphone.
When I mentioned all this to my friend Paul, he said, “Don’t you know we have our own dog whisperer right here in the neighborhood? Last year, I was going off to Europe for a few weeks, so I left my dog Charlie — who was very young and undisciplined and overly frisky — at Hacienda La Venta Club Canino, which is a very nice dog hotel. They told me they also did dog training. When I came back, Charlie had been transformed. He would heel, he would sit, he would lie down when he was told to, he would come when he was told to, he would wait for me outside the house — and I like the way the trainer Memo did it: using rewards, not punishments.”
One day, I decided to check out Club Canino, located in the town of La Venta del Astillero, a 10-minute drive west of Guadalajara and just a five-minute walk from the community where I live.
Behind a big gate I found a beautiful, wide, grass-covered patio surrounded by hacienda-like arches. All the dogs’ rooms face the patio, and each room has a window so that the guests can keep an eye on everything that’s going on outside. Besides that, each suite has a closed-circuit camera so that the owner can keep an eye on the dog via smartphone.
The founder and director of this inviting place, Guillermo Ortiz, sat me down in a nice shady spot at the edge of the patio. When Memo, as he calls himself, told me he had been working with dogs all his life, I asked him how canines look at the world.
“Basically, the dog sees the world through his nose. It’s through his sense of smell that a dog knows if you are afraid, if you are sad, if you are happy,” he said. “Each of us is a chemical factory, and we are constantly giving off hormones according to our estado de ánimo, our mood. All of this the dog perceives, so he is able to read us much better than we are able to read him.
“Dogs have been at man’s side for more than 30,000 years, plenty of time for them to figure out exactly what we are expressing, even if we ourselves don’t know. As for us humans, we aren’t nearly as good at reading dogs … but we can learn. We can observe their facial expressions, their vocalizations, the position of their tail, their posture, their body language. And with all this, we can hope to understand their inner state. Are my dog’s ears erect, relaxed, pointing forward, pointing back? All of these things we can learn to read.”
Ortiz takes a moment to greet a couple of of his canine customers.
I asked Memo to tell me something about training dogs.
“Some dogs are aggressive. People have brought us different breeds. For example, pit bulls and bull terriers can have this problem. Here we’ve had very good results, and it’s not unusual to change their behavior 100%. Whatever the case, we’ve always seen an improvement,” he said.
“Every dog is different. We have to look carefully at each particular case before deciding what techniques to use for each dog, but in general, it’s important to give a dog confidence, to let him know that what we want from him is a friendly relation with other dogs, that nothing bad will happen to him if he does what we are asking. In extreme cases, it’s important to draw their attention every single time a situation arises and to reward them whenever they accept the presence of another dog. The corrections we use are always in the language that they understand. We don’t hit dogs or mistreat them. We use the technique that the dog’s mother used when it was a puppy, to touch the dog in certain places, to put it into a position of submission, everything within the language of canine psychology.
“Here’s an example: once we had a dog named Kida with a problem. She was a pit bull, and she fought with every dog she saw until her owner reached the point where she simply couldn’t take Kida outside at all. Kida’s rehabilitation took about one month, and at the end, her owner could take her for a walk anywhere, passing other dogs with no problem. The case of another American Pit Bull Terrier named Bruno — who had been used in dog fights — was much more severe. Bruno needed four months to learn to tolerate other dogs.”
I asked Memo if he also did home visits.
“Yes, we offer classes at people’s homes. The class lasts 45 minutes, but it’s not for the dog, it’s for the owner, so they learn how to manage their dog. Most problems caused by dogs are actually being provoked by their owners.
Ortiz with his dog show trophies.
“We also give classes here at our installation. When it comes to more difficult cases, the dog stays here with us for as long as necessary. Every time the owner comes to visit the dogs, we explain the advances we’ve seen and eventually the dog goes back to its home.”
Finally, I brought up the subject of barking. “Can anything be done about it?”
“Here we offer training for dogs with problems of conduct or with traumas,” he said. “The problem of excessive barking is usually due to excessive energy or boredom, and we can use certain techniques to reduce the noise. We may not always achieve 100% success, but we usually see at least a 50% to 60% improvement.
“I’m thinking, for example, of a German Shepherd named Luna. The owners lived in Villa Real, and the problem was that Luna barked all day long and never stopped. So we worked with her, and the result is that today she barks only occasionally, like any normal dog.”
“What did you do to bring about this change?” I asked.
“It’s simple: exercise, training and the help of a special collar that produces a vibration when the dog barks. The training includes positive reinforcement every time the dog stays quiet for a while. When this happens you reward her, you pet her and you take her out to play, so she relates food and walks with keeping quiet. A lot of dogs bark because they want attention. What we have to do is convince them of the opposite: keeping quiet will get them what they want. As for the electronic collar, you can find it in specialized stores or you can get it from Mercado Libre.”
After meeting Memo the dog trainer and watching several reruns of The Dog Whisperer, I now walk the cobblestone streets of my fraccionamiento (neighborhood) understanding that the cacophony of barking all around me comes from countless dogs who are stressed and unbalanced because their owners have made them that way.
Club Canino has 24 roomy “suites” where you can leave your dog when you’re on vacation. It also features a training path where you can practice heeling, climbing stairs, etc. For more information, see their Facebook page or call Memo Ortiz at 333 140 8268.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila at a Covid-19 vaccination center in Mérida last week.
Yucatán will switch to medium-risk yellow on the state’s coronavirus stoplight map for the first time on Monday, Governor Mauricio Vila announced Thursday.
Yucatán is currently high-risk orange on both the state and federal stoplight maps. The federal Health Ministry will present an updated map at Friday night’s coronavirus press briefing.
Yucatán was medium-risk yellow on the federal map between November 23 and December 7 last year but state authorities decided last June that they would make their own decisions about coronavirus restrictions according to their own stoplight system.
“We have decided that decisions about Yucatán will not be made in Mexico City,” Vila said at the time.
The risk level in Yucatán, which has recorded more than 36,000 confirmed cases and over 3,600 Covid-19 deaths, has remained fixed at orange on the state stoplight map since June 8, 2020.
As of Monday, however, restrictions on the circulation of vehicles between 11:30 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. will not apply Sunday through Wednesday. But the ban on driving between those hours will remain in place Thursday through Saturday.
Vila also announced that restaurants will be permitted to remain open until midnight Sunday to Wednesday starting next week. They have been required to close at 10:00 p.m. for almost a year since reopening to in-house diners.
Also starting next week, the maximum capacity at restaurants, stores, shopping centers, supermarkets and hotels will increase to 75%. Cinemas and theaters will be limited to 50% of normal capacity.
Children’s playing areas and sporting facilities in public parks will reopen Monday, while university students will be permitted to resume professional work placements on May 15.
Social events such as weddings will also be permitted as of May 15, but people hosting and attending will be required to comply with strict health protocols. Attendance will be capped at 100 for indoor events and 200 for outdoor ones.
The governor warned that authorities will close down any events at which health protocols are being violated.
Yucatán took the decision to switch the risk level to yellow based on data showing that 30.5% of critical care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are occupied and 51.6% of all beds allocated for such patients are in use. The infection rate and the positivity rate are both on the wane.
As of Thursday, there were an estimated 562 active cases in the state, according to federal data, and 27,408 across the country.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally currently stands at just under 2.32 million while the official Covid-19 death toll is 214,095.
The pandemic has been so good to online shopping that Mexican businesses haven’t been able to find enough cardboard from their usual suppliers.
The cost of cardboard has increased by 10–15% in Mexico due to low global and local production and high demand generated by an online shopping boom amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview with the newspaper El Financiero, the head of the AMEE packaging association said that member companies have been forced to look for new cardboard suppliers in foreign countries because imports from the United States and local production have been insufficient to meet demand.
“The pandemic is affecting the supply of cardboard,” Hiram Cruz said.
“This is a result of the increase in e-commerce activity of up to 80%,” he said, adding that another factor is that China has stockpiled raw materials for the production of cardboard, “such as recycled cardboard.”
“That was coupled with the suspension of logistics firms’ activities due to the pandemic, which generated a shortage and an increase of 10–15% in the cost of cardboard,” Cruz said.
According to ANFEC, a national association of cardboard manufacturers, there was an unmet demand for 150,000 tonnes of cardboard last year.
“… Companies like FedEx and UPS tripled their demand. The change in the habits of the public due to coronavirus generated an additional degree of demand for short- and medium-term consumer goods that are transported in cardboard,” said ANFEC director Sergio Farfán.
The production in Mexico of three different types of cardboard — corrugated, micro-corrugated and foldable — all decreased in 2020, which Farfán attributed to the suspension of nonessential economic activities early in the pandemic.
Cardboard imports also declined last year, falling 5.6% to 395,769 tonnes, according to Economy Ministry data.
Farfán predicted that Mexican cardboard production will decline again in 2021 due to unreliable gas supply, a lack of paper availability — its cost also increased last year — and a shortage of other imported raw materials.
Cruz said the use of alternative packaging materials is not always feasible.
“What the packaging industry is about is finding the optimal material which is suitable to the packaging and security requirements of the product. There are materials with important innovations such as plastics and there are more innocuous materials such as glass, but we have to consider the benefit-to-cost ratio,” he said.
The newspaper El Economista reported Friday that e-commerce sales soared 62% in February compared to the same month last year.
Zaldívar: the court itself will resolve any legal challenges to the law.
Mexico’s Congress on Friday approved a law backed by President López Obrador to extend the term of the head of the Supreme Court, despite controversy over the move’s constitutionality.
Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar had admitted he was caught by surprise when the measure was added to a judicial reform bill at the last minute last week. He said in a statement it would be up to the Supreme Court itself to resolve any legal challenges to the law, which was passed last week in the Senate and on Friday in the lower house after hours of debate and objections raised by politicians from across the political divide.
He has ruled such moves unconstitutional in similar cases, including an attempt to prolong the term of a governor from the ruling Morena party in the state of Baja California.
Asked if he would stay on if the court ruled the extension constitutional, Zaldívar told Radio Fórmula “we would talk again then.” Meanwhile, “I am serving as chief justice of the court for the period for which I was elected.”
A two-year extension would mean Zaldívar’s term ends in 2024, when López Obrador’s presidency ends.
Critics have warned the move could set a precedent for López Obrador to seek to prolong his own mandate or install a justice over whom he could exercise control after he leaves office.
The president — who has weakened or attacked other key institutions including the electoral authority, INE, and pushed through energy reforms despite the Supreme Court ruling that key elements are unconstitutional — has dismissed such suggestions.
He said he believes the term extension is constitutional and without Zaldívar, an “honourable and principled” man, at the helm, judicial reform would be “dead in the water.”
However, Diego Valadés, a constitutional expert, said the timing was crucial, coming ahead of June 6 midterm elections in which López Obrador’s party is expected to trounce rivals.
“That would mean that most people would be legitimizing with their vote everything López Obrador has done against INE and in violation of the constitution,” he said.
Under Mexican law, presidents can only serve a single term. López Obrador has repeatedly said he would not seek re-election.
However, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, a veteran politician and senior member of López Obrador’s Morena party, warned in response to the extension of Zaldívar’s mandate: “We’re coming to a crossroads in history. There’s no turning back. Either we go to democracy or we go to authoritarianism.”
José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division at advocacy group Human Rights Watch, called the Zaldívar move “an unconstitutional reform which openly contradicts article 97, paragraph 4 of the constitution. It’s clear that Morena does not believe in the rule of law.”
That article states that the head of the court “cannot immediately be re-elected for a successive term” once his or her four-year term concludes.
Deputy Saúl Huerta will not be running for reelection in June, the Morena party announced Thursday.
A federal deputy with the ruling Morena party has decided not to stand for reelection at the upcoming elections amid accusations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy.
Morena announced Thursday night that Saúl Huerta, a deputy from Puebla, had resigned as a candidate for the June 6 elections, at which the entire lower house of Congress will be renewed.
The announcement came after audio was broadcast by Imagen Televisíon in which a teenage boy accuses Huerta of drugging him and assaulting him at a hotel in the Mexico City neighborhood of Juárez on Wednesday.
The youth, who was apparently working with the 63-year-old lawmaker, said Huerta gave him a soft drink that tasted “bitter,” adding that when he got out of a car upon arriving at the hotel, he felt “very dizzy” and could barely walk.
He said the deputy told him that he would rent two rooms but he only paid for one with one bed. The 15-year-old said that he lay down on the bed because he was feeling ill and that Huerta went to the bathroom.
The Morena party leader in the lower house of Congress, Ignacio Mier Velazco, declined to comment on Huerta’s case, calling it unrelated to Huerta’s position.
When the lawmaker exited, the youth said, the man was completely naked.
The teenager said Huerta pulled his pants down and guided his hand to his penis while using his own hand to masturbate him.
Imagen Televisíon also published audio of a telephone conversation between Huerta and the boy’s mother. In the conversation, the deputy attempts to reach a financial settlement with the woman to put an end to the scandal.
“Don’t destroy me,” he pleads with her on repeated occasions. “Let’s reach an economic agreement. … I’m begging you, help me; you’re going to destroy me. I’m a good person,” Huerta said.
The lawmaker was arrested at the hotel after the teenager managed to alert the manager that he had been sexually assaulted. Police took Huerta to the offices of the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ), but he was later released because, as a deputy, he has immunity from prosecution, known as the fuero.
The FGJ said it was continuing its investigation and would seek to have the lawmaker’s immunity removed if there was sufficient evidence against him.
Huerta, who participated virtually in a lower house session just hours after he was released from custody, later claimed that he had been a victim of an extortion and blackmail attempt in which he was “falsely” accused of abusing the boy. He claimed that the alleged victim was examined and that experts found no evidence of an assault. The deputy rejected the claim that he had used his fuero to escape custody.
Despite Morena Secretary-General Citlalli Hernández having called on Huerta to take a temporary leave of absence while the case was investigated, Morena’s leader in the lower house of Congress declined to comment on Thursday about the accusations Huerta faces or discipline him, saying that the alleged incident was part of his personal life and not related to his duties as a deputy.
“I can’t offer an opinion on personal things, not of him nor any other members of the Chamber of Deputies,” Ignacio Mier Velazco told reporters.
Asked whether he would seek Huerta’s resignation, Mier said:
“He didn’t do it [commit the alleged assault] in his role as a federal deputy; he did it in his personal life. I repeat, in the personal lives of deputies, I can’t get involved.”
Morena should be asked about the matter, Mier said, stressing that he is not the leader of the party.
Morena Secretary-General Citlalli Hernández called for Huerta to take a leave of absence from his post.
Morena subsequently announced on Twitter that Huerta had “definitively” and “irrevocably” resigned his candidacy for deputy at the June 6 elections, i.e., he voluntarily decided not to stand for reelection.
Morena did not force him to relinquish his candidacy, nor did it demand that he step down from his position, which he will continue to hold until the end of August.
Later on Thursday night, Mier clarified his position with regard to the allegations: “As coordinator of the Morena deputies, I express my repudiation of any act that is a crime against a minor,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Law enforcement authorities must investigate under the principles of presumption of innocence and due process. The Chamber of Deputies doesn’t have the power to exercise a process of desafuero [the removal of immunity] except through the request of the Attorney General’s Office or a judge,” Mier added.
“In the case of Saúl Huerta,” he said, “we will remain attentive and assist in whatever is required by the ministerial authorities.”
