Bar Abanicos police raid

Bar Abanicos police raid
DateJune 14, 1997
LocationCuenca, Ecuador
Coordinates2°54′04″S 79°00′02″W / 2.901003°S 79.000447°W / -2.901003; -79.000447
TypePolice raid

The Bar Abanicos police raid took place on the night of June 14, 1997, in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. During the raid, the police arrested homosexual and transgender people who had come to the bar for the election of the city's first gay queen. The detainees were tortured and raped inside the jail, with the consent of the police.[1]

The event generated reactions of rejection at the national level and was the trigger for different LGBTQ sectors to organize for the first time in the country and initiate a campaign for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ecuador, which in November of the same year achieved its goal when the Constitutional Court declared that the first paragraph of Article 516 of the Criminal Code, which criminalized homosexuality with a sentence of four to eight years, was unconstitutional.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ a b Cervantes Pesantes, Jeanneth (August 18, 2020). "Nadie muere para siempre". La Periódica (in Spanish). Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
  2. ^ "Parcial despenalización de la homosexualidad". Diario Hoy (in Spanish). November 26, 1997. Archived from the original on December 4, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  3. ^ "Las personas Glbti aún no tienen todos los derechos en Ecuador". El Comercio (in Spanish). November 27, 2017. Archived from the original on November 30, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2021.