Tucson, Arizona Saturday, 10 May 2003
The Associated Press
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For selling a fake winning lottery ticket, Maria Elena Guanga and Paola Tuz were publicly whipped - legal in Ecuador - and jailed. |
By Dolores Ochoa
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GUAMANLOMA, Ecuador - Doling out vigilante justice, highland villagers partially stripped and whipped two women in a public square after accusing them of being swindlers. They remained in custody Friday.
The Indian residents of this mountain town 80 miles south of the capital, Quito, seized the pair Wednesday after they allegedly tried to pass off fake winning lottery tickets in exchange for money and household appliances, according to journalists on the scene.
The villagers forced them to strip to their underwear before whipping them with bunches of nettles. They were doused with cold water and locked in a small room overnight.
Public beatings are sometimes carried out in isolated Andean villages. Ecuadoran legal practices allow Indian communities not served by police to apply vigilante justice.
On Thursday, the women - both around 30 years old and from Quito - were forced to march in front of hundreds of people who had assembled in a school courtyard for an impromptu public trial. The reporters said the women wept as they acknowledged wrongdoing and asked for forgiveness.
Two Indians, their faces covered by scarves, then poured gasoline on the women and threatened to ignite it. The women were whipped again as they begged to be set free. Villagers said they would be held until they returned the appliances.
An Associated Press photographer and a group of local journalists witnessed
the punishment. No police arrived.