The mayor of a city in Bolivia was beaten, dragged through the streets barefoot, covered in red paint and had her hair forcibly cut by a crowd of masked protestors on Wednesday in what appears to be the latest outburst of political violence after a contested election last month.
Patricia Arce, the mayor of Vinto in Bolivia, is a member of President Evo Morales’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party. The party blamed the attack on opposition protestors, according to local media.
Protesters marched to Vinto city hall in anger following reports of deaths caused when pro-government supporters, who were allegedly sent by the mayor, tried to break up anti-government blockade, local media said.
Arce was forced to walk to a bridge in Vinto, a small town in central Bolivia, by a crowd of masked protesters. There she was forced to kneel down for her hair to be cut and her body sprayed red.
She was then forced to hold a metal pole as she was paraded, barefoot, around the streets with red paint covering her face, hair and clothes.
In a video circulating on social media, Arce, surrounded by masked protestors said: “I’m not afraid to tell my truth. And I’m in a free country. And I’m not going to shut up and if they want to kill me, they kill me. As I’ve said before, for this process of change, I will give my life.”
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