IJINHA

NEWS CENTER – Yakiri Rubio Aupart, the 22-year-old Mexico City woman jailed for killing her rapist, has been absolved of all guilt. Yakiri, who is working to get her second attacker brought before a judge, is now a candidate for the local Legislative Assembly, according to CIMAC women's news agency.

Yakiri's ordeal began in 2013, when two men on motorbikes abducted her and took her to a hotel room in Mexico City, where they raped her at knifepoint. Seizing the knife with which the men were attacking her, Yakiri struck back against one man (Miguel Angel Ramirez Anaya) and fled. She wandered in the streets, nearly naked, with shopkeepers refusing her help. Police ignored all official procedures for how to treat a rape victim. That day, her assailant died of his wounds. Yakiri found herself charged with murder.

The sexist violence against Yakiri continued throughout her legal ordeal. In the courtroom, judges accepted far-fetched claims that one of the men was Yakiri's boyfriend (Yakiri is a lesbian) and searched for every avenue to blame her for her own rape. After a long campaign for Yakiri's freedom, started by her parents, Yakiri finally got her charge reduced to "excessive self-defense." Yesterday, all charges were dropped. Yakiri called the precedent-setting decision a "victory for all women."

Now Yakiri, who in an interview with the magazine La Capital said that before this experience she would have "never dreamed" of being involved in politics, is running for a seat on the Legislative Assembly in Mexico's 9th District, according to CIMAC women's news agency. With elections just two weeks away and well-financed mainstream candidates facing her, Yakiri faces a steep challenge. It was a tough decision to run, but Yakiri says she ultimately felt she had to accept the nomination to help other women in her situation.

"There are a lot of reasons," said Yakiri, when asked why she accepted the nomination. "One of them is that I have myself experienced the situation of the violence inside the justice system and I've seen that they haven't accepted women's right to self-defense, to exercise that right when you are under sexual assault or any other kind of violence."

As the "Freedom for Yakiri" movement feeds into an election campaign against the odds, Yakiri is fighting on another front as well. Her second attacker, Luis Omar Ramírez Anaya, has never been brought before a judge. Yakiri's lawyer Ana Katiria Suarez Castro says that after having broken the conception that Yakiri was condemned to her fate, the next step is the trial of the rapist. Lawyers are hoping to hear news about their appeal in the case within five days.

"It's not over until it's over, as the saying goes," said Yakiri.

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