Heart-breaking letter from the father of one of the French tourists killed in Salta
October 5, 2011
Jean-Michel Bouvier father of one of the French girls raped and murdered in Salta public an open letter in the French newspaper Le Monde, which recalls her daughter and asks for considere the crime as a femicide. He also reiterated a request he made to President Cristina Kirchner.
Cassandre Bouvier and Houria Moumni were two young french students who were traveling in northern Argentina.They were raped and murdered by three men while walking on a nature reserve.
Here is the open letter:
Recognize the crime of femicide
By Jean-Michel Bouvier, father of Cassandre
On Friday, July 15, in the hills of Salta in northern Argentina, my daughter Cassandra was beaten, raped and shot dead in the middle of the forehead. In the hospital morgue in Salta, her large dark eyes full frozen with fear but of tragic determination, and the many marks the outbreak of the violence suffered by the body, we are petrified with horror the father, mother, brother andsister got there last time to honor his remains and bring us back to France.
The next day, was imposed on me the idea that the sequence of the first acts against freedom of women and finally on his life deserved a specific rating that had the same legal consequences as a crime against humanity. The next day, I discovered in the French embassy in Buenos Aires the concept of femicide, common to all Latin America. He had found the banner of fighting that would have pride in my Cassandre.
Register the crime of femicide in the criminal law of my country is now the Holy Grail of my old days. The man who beats, rapes and murders a woman because she is female and has a physical rising above it will be denounced as a barbaric and punished as the perpetrator of a crime against humanity. The same applies to those who commit this crime collectively.
I am nothing without the support of all women and men of good will and without the organizations that campaign for human rights and against violence to women.Cassandra did not like injustice and its consequences: poverty, relegation and exclusion. He liked to find those that allow disadvantaged people out of their condition. She liked to be in solidarity with all who suffer and act on them.
I hope the executive and legislative authorities of my country that affirm the absolute necessity of increasing the rights of women and particularly their right to freedom and respect for physical integrity. On 1 September, I asked the President to take the lead in this regard. Soon I will address the Senate and National Assembly. During the upcoming presidential election, ask candidates to take a position on the issue. Call voters to deny the vote to candidates who have not committed explicitly by the inclusion of the crime of femicide in the penal code.
Cassandra and Houria’s death, his traveling companion, is certainly a “police case” and is understood to be erased. But the abominable conditions of his murder are a negation of the woman who deserves a constant media coverage for the protection of the vulnerable.
To ease my pain, I asked Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s president, the building of a commemorative stele at the site where Houria Cassandre and were denied. During a recent stay in France, she gave assurances on this point.In the wildest dreams imagine this trail as an illustration of a Franco-Argentina friendship welded against the crime of femicide. I imagine her as the first of a series that will form a garland around the Earth to witness the fight tirelessly to defend the lives of women.
Thanks, Cassandra, to infuse your generosity, your enthusiasm and your heart. Houria and you are now, for your families, angels inseparable. They will also be for all women heroines Argentina and France. I express the wish that they are also all Argentine and French me
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