Horrifying video shows trans woman being viciously whipped with a steel wire by thug who calls her ‘broken’
Yara Raquele was beaten with a metal rod in Brazil. (Twitter)
Horrifying video footage showed the moment a trans woman, cowering on the side of a beaten dirt path in northeastern Brazil, was brutally beaten with a steel wire by an armed man.
Yara Raquele screeched and wailed as the assailant, clenching her by the tresses of her hair, called her “broken” as he whipped her with a thick rod in an attack that left her back rankled by cuts and bruises.
During the incident, which took place in Santa Cruz, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, the attacker said Raquele needs to “learn to respect the crime” and demands an apology from her. It ends with her appearing to flee from the scene into an area of dry-bush and transmission towers.
In the patchwork of allegations – and the vacuum of official information – Twitter users have claimed that Raquele was lucky to have escaped with her life at all. The man, one user claimed, was a human trafficker.
It comes after journalist Daniel Filho uploaded the video to social media, asking for help in identifying the man.
Alguém tem informações desse caso? Esse lixo tem que apodrecer na cadeia pic.twitter.com/fiQyyJhuiO
— Daniel J. Leonardo Filho (@domleonardo_) September 17, 2020
Trans woman viciously whipped is doing ‘fine’ but had to flee town, officials say.
Local officials confirmed to LGBT+ news outlet Apoie o Dentrodomeio that Raquele is “fine” and has since left the city.
The Coordination for Women, Youth, Racial Equality and Human Rights said that the office can not comment further on the incident as the victim’s family still lives in Santa Cruz and that “could compromise everyone’s safety”, they said.
Moreover, the outlet specified in an initial report that regional LGBT+ groups expressed unease at getting involved, fearing, they said, retribution from violent local gangs. The contacted groups said they would leave the incident to the authorities.
The video of the incident winnowed on Twitter earlier this month, leaving many viewers aghast. Others, however, were numb, at this point inured to the relentless tsunami of violence inflicted upon Brazil’s fragile trans communities.
Indeed, the country is consistently ranked by queer humanitarian organisations as one of the deadliest places to be trans.
