My Face But Not My Body | Translation

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The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence. 

[Daniel Alarcón]: Before we begin… The names mentioned in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those interviewed.

This is Radio Ambulante. I’m Daniel Alarcón.

On October 6, 2023, Ana, 19 years old, was at home on the outskirts of Mexico City. It was past 8 PM, and she was about to go downstairs for dinner with her parents when she received a call…

[Ana]: It seemed really strange to me because this particular friend doesn’t usually call me.

[Daniel]: That day, Ana hadn’t gone to class, so she thought it might be something urgent and decided to answer.

On the other end of the line, her friend sounded distressed.

[Ana]: She told me something like, “One of the girls just called me. She said that Diego, a classmate from our marketing program, was taking pictures of us and downloading images from our social media to alter them with artificial intelligence and completely undress us.”

[Daniel]: Ana was struggling to follow what her friend was saying.

[Ana]: The two words that stuck with me were: “You—naked—and it’s being shared around school, right?”

[Daniel]: She didn’t understand, and even more so, she didn’t understand why Diego. I mean… yes, she had known him since the first semester of university. They both studied marketing and shared a classroom, but they weren’t close friends… Their interactions were nothing more than polite exchanges. She had never sent him pictures—of any kind. Her friend told her that another classmate had discovered the images on Diego’s iPad during class…

[Ana]: I said, “But how? Explain it to me properly.” And she replied, “Honestly, I don’t fully understand either. They just found out, and now they’re figuring out what to do. I think they’re in the principal’s office, and apparently, they want to file a complaint…”

[Daniel]: Ana started to feel cold—that kind of cold that comes from fear and extreme anxiety. Her friend told her she would add her to a WhatsApp group where other affected girls were also included. There, they could try to get answers.

Ana hung up and started shaking. She had too many questions…

[Ana]: “What do you mean there are naked pictures of me? What do you mean he’s sharing them? Who has seen them? Who recognized me? What will people think? How am I going to tell my parents?”

[Daniel]: Almost instantly, she received a notification that she had been added to the group chat. Everything there was chaotic—it was happening in real-time.

Ana decided to text her boyfriend. She needed to talk to someone who could help calm her down. She told him everything that was happening. It surprised him and he was furious, he knew Diego because they had run into each other at parties or mutual friends’ gatherings.

Meanwhile, she received a private message from Irma, the girl who had found the altered images on Diego’s iPad.

What she sent her is something Ana will never forget.

[Ana]: That’s when I really broke down because it was worse than I could have imagined.

[Daniel]: It was a picture she recognized almost immediately. She had posted it on Instagram some time ago. It was a selfie in front of a mirror… It was her face, yes, but not her body.

[Ana]: A completely altered, sexualized body—a very vulgar way of portraying a woman’s body…

[Daniel]: Her head started pounding, her stomach churned, a lump formed in her throat, she got dizzy… she couldn’t breathe…

[Ana]: That’s when I completely collapsed. I just fell to the floor, thinking: What is this? And if I felt ashamed, humiliated, and destroyed seeing my own image, the mere idea of others already having seen it made it even worse.

[Daniel]: There were other pictures too. She had taken them at different times and posted them on social media. Some were modifications of screenshots from stories that only last 24 hours… The oldest one was from around 2022…

[Ana]: And then I started feeling regret, like, “Why did I post that picture?”

[Daniel]: And why her… I can only imagine the horror. Let’s put ourselves in her place. Seeing a picture you once posted because you wanted to show what you were wearing that day… something so routine, so trivial… something so many people do… And then suddenly seeing another picture. A similar one. Being able to recognize the place, the objects around you, remembering the exact moment you took it, recognizing everything—except your own body. Everything so familiar yet, at the same time, so fake. And still, feeling completely vulnerable. Violated. Exposed.

It took Ana a while to regain her composure, but at some point, she made a decision.

[Ana]: I said, “I have to do something right now. I need to figure out what I’m going to do because if I don’t, I’m going to lose my mind just sitting here.”

[Daniel]: And so began her search for answers and justice.

A short break, and we’ll be back.

[Daniel]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante. Journalist Selene Mazón, continues the story.

[Selene Mazón]: After the shock of seeing that image of herself, Ana tried to pull herself together and resumed her conversation with her boyfriend. She told him what she had just seen.

[Ana]: And he told me: “You know what? This is a crime, and you have to report it. It’s wrong. Don’t think he’s just doing this as a joke or some dumb prank—this is serious, and he’s violating your rights.”

[Selene]: Besides the rage she felt toward Diego, Ana also felt shame and fear.

[Ana]: I told him, “What scares me is that my parents won’t believe me, or that people in general won’t. And then… how am I supposed to go back to school? What happens next?”

[Selene]: Her boyfriend reassured her, telling her that was the last thing she should worry about, that she hadn’t done anything wrong. Ana calmed down a little and told him that in the WhatsApp group, the girls were talking about reporting Diego, but she wasn’t sure. Her boyfriend suggested that she talk to her parents first. If they didn’t support her, he would go with her.

Ana decided to go down to the kitchen. Her mom and dad were already sitting at the table having dinner. This is her mom, Emma.

[Emma]: I immediately knew something was wrong with my daughter because her face was different. She had something to say but didn’t know how to say it. It wasn’t the face she usually made when asking for permission to go somewhere or when telling us something exciting. Her face was different.

[Selene]: With great effort, Ana told them everything. She was pale. It was hard for Emma to fully understand what her daughter was telling her… She didn’t know much about artificial intelligence or how the technology behind it worked. But she never doubted her daughter’s words.

[Emma]: She made it very clear from the start that the photos were edited, you know? Like she was embarrassed to say it, because she didn’t know how we, her parents, would react to hearing that there were pictures of her with a naked body.

[Selene]: As a woman, her mother completely understood how she was feeling.

[Emma]: Because I felt it too. I felt the same rage, the same indignation. I mean, if I were in her place, how do I explain to the world, to my parents, to the people who’ve already seen it, that it’s not my body? It’s an… it’s an incredible feeling because you know it’s not your body, but you still feel ashamed that someone is looking at it.

[Selene]: Her father didn’t say much, but it was obvious he was also outraged and angry. So they asked their daughter the only thing they could think to say: What do you want to do?

Ana told them that some classmates were on their way to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to report Diego. And that, even though she wasn’t sure if she would file a complaint herself, she did want to go support them. Her parents agreed. They grabbed the car keys and left.

On the way, Emma kept asking Ana how she felt, reminding her that she wasn’t alone, that they supported her in everything… But Ana could barely talk. Emma, on the other hand, had no idea what could be done in this case.

[Emma]: What do you do? How do you protect her from something like this? There’s no way. You make sure nothing happens to her on public transport by driving her yourself. You make sure she’s safe when she’s at a friend’s house. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. You know? No matter how hard I tried to be strong, I couldn’t hold back my tears.

[Selene]: She felt completely powerless. When they arrived at the Public Prosecutor’s Office, she grabbed her daughter’s hand and walked as fast as she could to the entrance. At first, they only wanted to let Ana in, but in the end, her mother was allowed to accompany her.

Ana was walking almost mechanically.

[Ana]: I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I was just like, “Okay, I’m here. I need to go upstairs. Where do I need to go?”

[Selene]: Most of all, she wanted to find her classmate, Irma, the one who had discovered the photos and was leading the complaint. As Ana climbed the stairs to the second floor, she caught a glimpse of Diego in custody. He was sitting in a room with bars.

[Ana]: And I remember my immediate reaction was, “No, I don’t want to see him.” I wanted to leave quickly, but my mom asked me, “Is that him?” And I said, “Yes.”

[Emma]: When I saw him, I felt this overwhelming urge to kick him, to grab him—God, you have no idea. My blood was boiling. I had to hold myself back, and calmed me down. He said, “Relax, stay calm.”

[Selene]: Ana pulled her away so they could leave quickly, and they reached a waiting room where other people were there to report different crimes. Almost immediately, she saw Irma coming out of an office. They hugged, and right then and there, Irma started telling her everything that had happened.

Earlier that day, Irma was leaving class when she saw Diego sitting at his desk. His iPad was open on the table, and he was looking at a photo of a naked woman…

Something about it caught Irma’s attention, and she stared at the screen. She had the same reaction as Ana: she recognized her face, but not her body. She confronted Diego right away. His entire demeanor changed. He turned bright red… That always happened when he got nervous.

According to Ana and the other girls, Diego was the kind of guy who wanted the full college experience: going to parties, drinking, hanging out at bars… He liked making dumb jokes in class, but not to the point of being annoying. It was clear he wanted to be accepted, to be liked by his classmates. So much so that everyone knew the password to his iPad because he would lend it to people to play games.

Diego tried to lock and hide the iPad. Some of Irma’s friends came over to see what was going on. At first, Diego denied everything. And the more Irma questioned him, the more he contradicted himself. Then Irma’s friends stepped in. Here’s Irma.

[Irma]: And since he was denying it, they said, “Well, then show us the iPad.”

[Selene]: Irma finally managed to grab the iPad and got a closer look at the photo. She froze.

[Irma]: “Why is my photo like this? Why is it altered?” That was my first reaction. But then I thought: “What are they going to do with this photo? Does he just have it here? Does he have it on all his devices?”

[Selene]: And while all that was racing through her mind, Diego changed.

[Irma]: Suddenly, he went from looking ashamed or embarrassed to getting aggressive. He lunged at me, trying to grab the iPad.

[Selene]: Irma managed to step back, but Diego started flailing his arms and yelling… Several classmates had to hold him back. Irma ran out of the classroom to talk to the program coordinator and the director. Once inside the director’s office, she finally had a moment of calm to look at what was on the iPad… And there they were: thousands and thousands of photos and videos of women with sexual content. She recognized several of her classmates… Suddenly, this seemed much bigger than she had imagined.

Deepfake pornography, its sale, and its distribution are alarmingly common…There are more and more apps that transform ordinary images of girls and women into pornography, which is then uploaded to websites. One of the most popular pages dedicated to this gets more than 17 million visits a month…

When Irma told the head of her department what she had found, he said they would expel Diego and that if she wanted to press charges, the university would support her. The director called the police and offered to send her a lawyer from the Polytechnic. At nine o’clock that night, two patrol cars took Irma and Diego separately to the prosecutor’s office.

(Music / Pause)

As Ana and Irma talked, they felt that the people at the prosecutor’s office were glancing at them sideways, judging them. In her statement, Irma had mentioned that more girls would soon come forward to report the same crime. And for Ana, the way they were treated made her think that the officials saw them as a bunch of troublemaking girls.

The girls kept waiting for the lawyer the university had promised them. But there was still no sign of them. Everything was new to them.

[Ana]: We had never been in that situation before; we didn’t really understand the crime because it was something so new — not even the people at the prosecutor’s office understood it. And seeing how little they cared, and how they just wanted us to move faster because there were so many other people waiting… it felt like they didn’t believe us.

[Selene]: The issue of punishing deepfakes is relatively new worldwide. Few countries have made progress. One of them is South Korea, where lawmakers are working on a bill to fine and imprison those who produce or possess this kind of material. In some U.S. states, laws have been passed to combat the use of manipulated images or audio, although not exclusively related to sexual content. And in the United Kingdom, there’s already a law that criminalizes sharing deepfake pornography, while the government has begun working on another that would criminalize its creation.

In Mexico, one of the existing legal avenues to address these cases is the crime of sexual privacy violation. It’s defined under what is known as the Olimpia Law — a set of reforms passed in 2021 aimed at punishing digital violence and protecting people’s sexual privacy. The law’s advocate was Mexican activist Olimpia Coral, who was 18 when she became a victim of revenge porn after her ex-partner shared a sexual video of her without her consent. Olimpia succeeded in having digital violence recognized and punished with up to eight years in prison for those who share intimate content in that way, depending on the state where the crime is committed.

(Music)

When Ana was called to give her statement, a person in front of a computer was waiting for her. Inside, there were also police officers eating and chatting. She felt intimidated.

[Ana]: I remember feeling so, so angry because I was telling them the situation, my throat tight, feeling awful. And they were just typing like, “Oh, sorry, what did you say?” Um, your photo. And artificial intelligence. Uh-huh. And a naked body. Uh-huh. Okay. Uh-huh. Like, it was just a bunch of uh-huhs. Okay. Okay.

[Selene]: Ana left the room exhausted… And she still had to speak to three more people to complete the report. After an hour and a half, they called her into another office to confirm her story again. They wouldn’t stop questioning her… Minimizing what she was going through.

[Ana]: But was that it? I mean, they just altered a photo? You weren’t raped, you weren’t beaten? That’s all?

[Selene]: The same thing happened to the other girls who came forward. They were questioned for having tattoos or piercings, blamed for not keeping their Instagram profiles private.

[Ana]: It was like, “Hey, but if it’s not your body, why does it bother you?” “Don’t worry, if it doesn’t look real, then what’s the big deal?”

[Selene]: When she came out, her mom approached her and hugged her.

[Emma]: There was a moment when everyone, once they were with someone, broke down. The parents did too, because there were a lot of them there supporting their daughters. No matter how strong I tried to be for her, I couldn’t. The tears won, and we broke down right there.

(Pause/Music)

[Selene]: As the process dragged on, Ana saw other people arriving at the prosecutor’s office. Most of them were women. Many were there to report rape, assault, abuse… It shook her. It was the first time she had seen, with her own eyes, women who had been violated in that way, and in a way, she felt guilty for being there.

[Ana]: I mean, I started downplaying my own problem, thinking, I don’t even fully understand the crime committed against me, but I’m seeing all these girls coming in with physical injuries.

[Selene]: She started regretting filing the report. And then, for some reason they never understood, they saw that the police were walking Diego past them, handcuffed.

[Ana]: He walked like nothing was happening. Even bouncing a little, like “I don’t care what they do…” He seemed completely relaxed the whole time. He even looked smug.

[Selene]: Ana felt exposed… Now Diego knew exactly who was accusing him. The whole situation was discouraging.

[Ana]: You feel humiliated, belittled, re-victimized. I was overwhelmed with so many emotions at once, but all bad. I was exhausted, starving, really sad, really angry…

[Selene]: But she stayed for her friends. Because they were in this together. Because at least among them, they understood each other and knew they were telling the truth.

[Ana]: A big part of why I’m doing this is because if they don’t believe me, they have to believe one of the eight. If not me, then my friend. And if not her, then my other friend. Someone. But they need to know this is real, and they can’t keep minimizing it just because they don’t understand the situation.

[Selene]: Ana finished giving her statement at 5 a.m. on Saturday. The whole process took over seven hours. The lawyer the university had promised never showed up. They had no idea what would happen next or what the following steps were. The only thing they were told was that Diego would remain in custody until Monday. That day, the first hearing of the case would take place.

Since each of the girls had filed individual complaints, a separate case file was opened for each one. Meaning there were eight different legal proceedings against Diego for the same crime. They were confident Diego would be sentenced. They had presented the evidence. Everything was there.

When Ana walked out of the prosecutor’s office, she saw her dad and her boyfriend waiting for her. Seeing them there was comforting. Her boyfriend walked up to her.

[Ana]: When he hugged me, I realized that, at least for that day, it was over.

[Selene]: For that day—because the nightmare was far from over.

[Daniel]: A short break, and we’ll be right back.

(Midroll)

[Daniel]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante. Selene Mazón continues her story.

[Selene]: During the weekend after Ana and the other girls filed their complaint, Diego remained in custody at the prosecutor’s office. By protocol, he had to stay there until Monday for his first hearing. That would determine whether Diego would remain detained or not.

The first hearing was for Irma’s complaint—the one who found the iPad. When Monday arrived, she and the other girls gathered outside the prosecutor’s office. Since the lawyer the university had promised never showed up, the prosecution assigned her one to represent her that day. Because it was a sexual crime, only Irma could go inside.

During the hearing, her lawyer was nervous. To Irma, it seemed like he had no experience with these kinds of cases. And while she felt uneasy, Diego looked completely at ease. After two hours, the judge gave his decision. Here’s Irma.

[Irma]: The judge said that the prosecution couldn’t provide the photo as evidence because, well, they may have found certain things, but not specifically of the victim who was there pressing charges, right?

[Selene]: In other words, even though the cyber police found thousands of photos, they needed to find Irma’s specific image for Diego to remain in custody.

[Irma]: I felt terrible because I thought, “What is this?” I mean, if everything was right there on the iPad, how could they not find it? And I thought, “What if they already deleted everything? What if there was corruption and they erased it?” A million things went through my mind, and I just started crying.

[Selene]: There was also another, even stronger argument: the crime of violation of sexual privacy punishes only the creation and distribution of such material. So for Diego to be prosecuted, they needed to prove that Irma caught him red-handed editing or sharing a photo with her image. Irma was devastated. The judge clarified that the investigation would continue—just with Diego out on the streets.

(Music/Pause)

Outside the prosecutor’s office, the other girls were waiting for her. When Irma walked out, she could barely speak, but her face said it all.

[Irma]: I made eye contact with them and tried to say something, but I couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t come out… I was overwhelmed with the urge to cry. It was obvious what had happened, right?

[Selene]: Emma, Ana’s mother, remembers when her daughter called her to give her the news. Here she is.

[Emma]: When she called me, she was crying: “Mom, they’re going to let him go.” “Are you okay?” “No, Mom. They’re letting him go.” I ran from downtown to the prosecutor’s office. It’s a ten-minute run. I got there fast, and they were inconsolable.

[Selene]: They felt that if they couldn’t prove Diego’s guilt with Irma’s complaint—the one who had actually seen him with the iPad—what chance did the rest of them have?

(Pause)

After the hearing, the girls went together to the university. Now that Diego was free, they feared he would show up as if nothing had happened. Even though the director had promised Irma he would be expelled, there had been no official announcement. When they went to ask, they were told they couldn’t expel him because the university had not conducted an investigation. Here’s Ana.

[Ana]: Just because the government said he was free, they went, “Oh, well, then so do we.”

[Selene]: They were sent to speak with the university’s psychologist. And she told them something they didn’t expect.

[Ana]: She was telling us that in order to be okay, we had to forgive him and think about the ways in which we were privileged in this situation. Like, since things hadn’t gone further, we should consider ourselves lucky. We felt completely re-victimized.

[Selene]: But rather than discouraging them, the university’s response pushed them to act. They decided that the best thing they could do was to make their story public, to ensure the case didn’t go unpunished. They sent dozens of messages to various media outlets and feminist collectives, hoping someone would respond. They wanted, at the very least, for Diego to face public shame. Here’s Irma.

[Irma]: If we were feeling scared and ashamed because we didn’t know who had seen those photos, and because of everything this meant for us psychologically, at least he shouldn’t be able to just walk around freely like nothing had happened. Maybe, hopefully, someone would recognize him and call him out.

[Selene]: The next day, an Instagram account with many young followers—just like them—posted a carousel of ten images detailing everything that had happened, step by step. The headline on the first image was striking: “More than 20,000 photos without consent.” The girls shared it on their own social media, it went viral, and very quickly, they felt an outpouring of support.

[Ana]: We stopped seeing ourselves as victims and started seeing ourselves as the ones actually doing something about this crime.

[Selene]: After that, some of the feminist collectives they had reached out to began responding. Olimpia Coral—the activist behind the law under which they had filed their complaint—was one of the first to reach out. She went to see them at the university. For them, it was a turning point.

With her help, the girls drafted a series of demands addressed to the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office and the authorities of their university. They laid out all the facts and asked, among other things, for Diego to be expelled and for the university to adjust its protocols to properly handle cases like this.

It had only been three days since Diego was released, and they hadn’t heard anything about him. They were afraid he would try to escape, so they had to act fast. They went to Zacatenco, the university’s main campus, where a couple of officials, mostly men, met with them. They said they could process the request for expulsion, but they needed to print their nude photos to archive them in a case file. They needed to keep the evidence.

[Ana]: As soon as they said that, we started yelling at them, telling them that what we wanted was for this content to stop being spread. How could we allow more people to see it? And on top of that, all men? That they would print them? We had no idea what security measures they had in place—so no, absolutely not.

[Selene]: They didn’t back down. They told the officials that if their demands weren’t met, they would stage a protest.

[Soundbite of archive: background noise]

[Selene]: The next day, they demonstrated in front of the university’s main entrance. They covered their faces, brought megaphones, and blocked the street. Some feminist collectives joined them, along with Olimpia herself. The story started appearing in several media outlets.

[Soundbite of archive]

[Journalist 1]: Artificial intelligence is being used by digital abusers.

[Journalist 2]: A Poli student sold over 20,000 intimate and deepfake porn images of his classmates without their consent.

[Journalist 3]: He manipulated and edited these photos to depict them fully nude.

[Journalist 4]: ESCA students have reported re-victimization and abandonment by the university authorities throughout this process.

[Selene]: The pressure on the university worked. That same day, they issued a statement announcing Diego’s permanent expulsion from the institution.

(Pause)

Meanwhile, the legal process continued, but the investigative task facing the cyber police was immense. Among more than 160,000 files, they had to find the original and edited photos of all the girls who filed the complaint. They had to ensure it was the same number of photos they had mentioned in their complaint.

To move the case forward more quickly, the police asked the girls to go to the prosecutor’s office in person to find them. They agreed. They stopped going to class and focused solely on that.

At first, they organized themselves to go to the prosecutor’s office together. They arrived very early to sit in a small room. The thousands of photos were on a USB flash drive connected to a medium-sized television. They had to open them one by one until they found their photos. They weren’t cataloged or organized in any way. It was exhausting. Furthermore, the system rebooted every day, and they had to practically start from scratch. Most of the time, they remained silent. This is Ana.

[Ana]: I feel like it was the most traumatic scene of the whole process, because having to watch child pornography, watching videos, seeing photos of unconscious women, real photos, altered photos. It was humiliating, it was unpleasant, it was extremely sad, it was helpless because obviously you didn’t know who those children were or how you could help them. I mean, many, many things.

[Selene]: It was a lot to digest. To support each other, as the days went by, they took turns depending on how each one was feeling.

(Music/Pause)

Since Diego’s release on October 9, 2023, the girls stopped going to college. And although the teachers knew about their situation, they gave them trouble for missing school and not turning in their work. They expected the girls to act normally, as if nothing had happened.

But here’s something to understand: even though the nude images of them are “fake,” it’s proven that being victims of this can cause trauma, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Because the creation of a deepfake without consent is severe identity theft… And that’s what Ana felt… that her identity was crumbling.

[Ana]: Maybe what I wanted people to see about me was that I was a dedicated person, that I liked my career, that I was intelligent, that I was fun, and how someone who did what’s attacking you can change people’s perspective of you when you worked so hard to build something that was how you wanted other people to see you.

[Selene]: And not only that: the mere thought of that content floating around on devices, beyond her control, was terrifying in itself.

[Ana]: You’re walking to school and you don’t know who’s watching you naked because they saw that photo. Who’s maybe waiting to see what time you’re leaving? Where are you going? Who are you going out with? When are you alone? I mean, it was completely insecure. At one point, I even thought I had persecution delusions, that everyone was watching me, that they were following me, that everyone was judging me too.

[Selene]: Ana started to shut down. She became more quiet and reserved. She stopped meeting new people. She only talked to the girls she was sharing the case with, who were also experiencing similar situations. She stopped using her social media accounts. Before, she used to upload photos of herself when she liked how she was dressed or how she looked… But after what Diego did to her, her relationship with her body changed.

[Ana]: There are already like a thousand stereotypes about women about how a body should or must be, eh… It’s already something that you can judge yourself by, but seeing yourself in a different body is also a super strong impact, because obviously you start to judge yourself by your body, by your way of being.

[Selene]: Ana lived through all of this in silence. And despite the support, a tacit agreement was formed at home where the topic of Diego was not discussed unless strictly necessary…

(Music)

Meanwhile, the search for his photos seemed endless. The shifts lasted between 10 and 12 hours… Until, after about two weeks, they finally found the first photo of one of them…

They immediately notified the cyber police. They had them fill out forms to attach the image to the investigation file. With this evidence, the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested an arrest warrant for Diego. They arrested him at his home in the early hours of October 26, 2023.

Ana was at one of the many meetings with the Prosecutor’s Office when she heard the news.

[Ana]: And we were all very happy. I mean, I remember that yes, everything was like that, a very… a long time ago we felt a bit of peace and a bit of relief. Yes, it was like wow, and, and then everything we were doing began to take shape and make sense, because it was like, we’d already achieved a lot, which obviously we didn’t expect, right?

[Selene]: Over the following weeks, the complainants found the photos they had mentioned in their case. Now they just had to wait for the hearings.

[Daniel]: A break and we’ll be back.

MIDROLL

[Daniel]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante. Selene Mazón continues her story.

[Selene]: Since October 26, 2023, Diego was detained in the Eastern Men’s Preventive Prison. By April 2024, six months after the iPad was confiscated, only two complaints had been filed. Remember, eight different complaints were filed. One for each of the girls. Some were delayed due to bureaucracy, long wait times, and requests from Diego’s defense team.

By then, the girls had changed lawyers. A feminist collective called “Abogadas con Glitter” referred them to a criminal lawyer with a gender perspective. She decided to focus on the two most advanced complaints, and during those months, several hearings were held to prove Diego’s guilt.

One of the main arguments Diego’s lawyers used to defend his innocence was the same one they used to free him the first time: it couldn’t be proven that he edited the photos. They argued that Diego was a, and I quote, “collector”… That he simply had them saved on his iPad, and that wasn’t a crime. However, Diego was prosecuted for human trafficking and child pornography for the photos the girls found during their search. It may sound counterintuitive that the crime of human trafficking would be applied, but the Mexican Supreme Court had already ruled that storing child pornography should be considered as such.

Meanwhile, Ana returned to classes, and the medication her psychiatrist prescribed began to take effect. She felt more stable. Some of them began reading more about feminism. Others began having more open conversations with their families about gender-based violence. The whole incident had changed things in their homes and in their lives.

After a year, the day of Diego’s sentencing trial arrived: December 4, 2024.

[Archive Soundbite]

[Selene]: That day I was there, outside the Eastern Prison in Mexico City. There were a lot of people and a lot of media. Diego had been in prison for 13 months. The street in front of the prison entrance was divided into two parts, marked by colors.

[Archive Soundbite]

[Selene]: It was a confrontation between two sides.

[Archived Soundbite]

[Woman]: Today we tell our colleagues at the National Polytechnic Institute that they are not alone. We are here. Here is their pack, and together we will continue to resist…

[Selene]: On one side, what one would expect in a case this serious: a tent where the polytechnic girls wearing purple scarves shouted slogans through a megaphone. Behind them was a banner that read: “All sexual aggressors out of the IPN.”… From the National Polytechnic Institute.

And on the other side, a group of people dressed in blue.

[Women of the No More Innocent Prisoners collective]: Man. Listen. This is your fight, man. Listen. This is your fight.

[Selene]: “Man, listen, this is your fight,” they shouted. They were women from the “No More Innocent Prisoners” collective. They held flags and banners with phrases like “Silencing a man is also violence,” “No more innocent prisoners for scorned women,” “Enough. No more feminist pressure.”

The collective was created around 2021, and its leader says it currently has around 1,500 members nationwide. Most of them are women who have a family member—brother, son, partner, father—detained for sexual crimes. There with them was Diego’s mother. She told me her son is innocent. That he’s a quiet boy, who doesn’t go to parties, she emphasized. I asked her a question:

[Selene]: Why would these girls go to the trouble of putting together a case like this? Wasting time, energy?

[Angélica]: I can’t tell you, I mean, I have my own conclusions and seeing and thinking and how things are developing. I can have many perspectives, many answers. Nothing will be seen until… well, I really ask that the person who really lied be punished.

[Selene]: She didn’t tell me why.

[MUSIC]

The trial was scheduled for 2:00 p.m., but it started about two hours later. The lawyer and Irma entered the prosecutor’s office, and the rest of us waited outside.

As time passed, people from both sides dispersed. Some went to get something to eat, the media cameras followed them, and there was a lot of anticipation. No one knew what was happening inside. I left around 6:00 p.m., and I learned the rest from the girls. They were told the trial ended at 11:00 p.m. Ten minutes later, they saw Diego’s lawyers rush out. Then Irma and her lawyer left. Here’s Ana:

[Ana]: When we went to ask him… I mean, before he told us anything, he started crying, and that’s when we knew it had gone bad again.

[Selene]: Irma told them that the judge had accepted that everything was real and that the girls were victims of a crime… But the argument from the first time he was released weighed more: it couldn’t be proven that Diego was the one who edited the photos. He was acquitted of the crime of sexual violation based on the two girls’ complaint… But he wasn’t free, as the trial for the crimes of child pornography and human trafficking is still pending.

Even though he’s still in custody, the outcome was a very hard blow for the girls.

[Ana]: I mean, it really knocked us all down. I remember, for example, another girl. She started vomiting, another was crying, I felt like I was going to faint, I mean, it was like… It was a very bad feeling overall.

[Selene]: For days, Ana and the others took refuge with their families. Irma and the other girl from the trial decided to appeal the judge’s decision. While the others still had to go through the long hearing process. One of them was Ana. And although they didn’t know if they would get a different result, they decided to continue…

(Music)

But there is irreparable damage. Ana told me how difficult it has been for her.

[Ana]: I’m definitely not as sociable as I used to be, because it’s hard for me to think I’m going to be safe with just anyone, because it’s like feeling the fear of being betrayed or hurt for being so open to my life. Right? Regarding my personal situation, yes, all of that.

[Selene]: She doesn’t see college the same either. If she used to be passionate about going to classes and studying, now she only thinks about finishing her degree as soon as possible. She hasn’t stopped feeling watched, persecuted, judged. And that’s something the other girls share.

But in the midst of all this, the unity she’s built with the others has made her stronger. There’s something else that keeps her going: Ana knows that what she and the others are doing is important for many young girls.

[Ana]: And seeing that many girls identify with the situation or are even excited to know that a precedent is being set for things that could become important, that it could be the first case that will be much more regularized. The whole issue of artificial intelligence, social media, everything is what has kept us a little more… more at the forefront of the situation.

So they will seek to have Mexican laws punish the possession of this type of content, as well as demand the cooperation of digital platforms to reach those responsible. Regardless of the fatigue. Because appropriating their bodies and their stories is something that neither Diego nor any artificial intelligence can take away from them.

[Daniel]: This story was produced by journalists Selene Mazón and Lisette Arévalo. Selene lives in Mexico City; Lisette lives in Quito, Ecuador.

This story was edited by Camila Segura and Luis Fernando Vargas. Bruno Scelza did the fact-checking. The sound design is by Andrés Azpiri with music by Ana Tuirán.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Melisa Rabanales, Natalia Ramírez, David Trujillo and Elsa Liliana Ulloa.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.

Radio Ambulante is a podcast from Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed by the program Hindenburg PRO.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to continue providing independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donate and help us continue telling the stories of the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thank you for listening.