MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's first-division soccer club America announced fines and a one-game suspension Tuesday for members of its under-17 team for a video showing them laughing and dancing to "The Rapist Is You" anthem adopted by campaigners against gender-based violence.
The team said the players showed a lack of respect for the song, which has become popular in Latin America, the U.S. and Europe as a way of denouncing violence against women.
The video was posted in early December and shows a handful of players in a locker room, three of them shirtless, laughing and dancing to lyrics that say "And the fault was not mine, neither where I was, nor how I was dressed,” and, “The rapist is you.”
Born in Chile, the feminist song spawned a series of videos of Mexican men and male teens appearing to mock it, sparking criticism in social and traditional media and among women's activists and allies.
Created by the Chilean feminist collective Lastesis, the song was first performed late last month in the South American country’s capital, Santiago, amid widespread anti-government protests that elicited a harsh crackdown by security forces.
Thousands of women wearing blindfolds and bandannas replicated the performance Nov. 29 in Mexico City’s sprawling main square, known as the Zocalo, and it has spread as well to other parts of the country as well.
