A young gay man is burned and murdered in the Mexican Caribbean after revealing that he had HIV

A young gay man was tortured, burned and killed after revealing that he was HIV-seropositive last weekend in the resort of Cancún, in the Mexican Caribbean, an organization that defends the LGBTTI+ community in the state reported on Tuesday.

According to the version of representatives of the Resilientxs organization, which made the case public, last Saturday, the victim was at a party at the Cancun resort, where he revealed his serological status, to which some of the assistants allegedly tortured, burned and finally murdered him.

“The victim was murdered inside a blacksmith shop; she was beaten, tortured, burned and killed once she commented that she had HIV, she had many stab wounds,” Edwin Reyes, a representative of Resilientxs, told Efe.

“This case has generated a lot of anger in us because we are in the month that commemorates the pride of our community and in which rights are requested and claimed,” he added.

After learning about the case, the head of the Quintana Roo Human Rights Commission, Marco Antonio Tóh, condemned the hate crime.

In addition, he reported that the General Inspectorate in Cancun will carry out the corresponding procedures to see that justice is done in the case and urged the authorities to investigate with a gender perspective so that the crime does not go unpunished.

Meanwhile, the Quintana Roo State Attorney General's Office (FGE) opened an investigation folder for the crime of homicide, but not for a hate crime, because this crime is not yet typified in the Penal Code of the entity.

“The Quintanarroense LGBT Network, of which we are a part, has asked all the authorities to reform the Penal Code to include hate crimes, in accordance with international standards,” Reyes explained.

“But they have not done it nor have they taken us into account, this speaks of the institutional abandonment that exists in the state,” added the activist, who emphasized that the accused “is not an isolated case and that discrimination against the LGBTTI+ community is recurrent in the Mexican Caribbean.

Later, the Ministry of the Interior (Interior) strongly rejected and condemned the hate crime that occurred in Cancun and called on the Quintana Roo government to take the necessary measures against all types of violence aimed at LGBTTTI people, in addition to requesting an investigation. with an anti-discrimination perspective.

According to the organization Letra S, Mexico recorded 79 murders against people from the LGBT community in 2020. Of these, 43 of them were homicides of trans women.

In Quintana Roo, the state Human Rights Commission reported that 33 people have been murdered in recent years because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression..