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By M.Eugenia Ludueña

The trial of Eva Analía Higui de Jesús now has a start date: it will be in April 2019. “The first hearing will be on April 23, 2019 at 9 a.m., in the Oral Court No. 7 of San Martín,” reported her lawyer, Gabriela Chiqui Conder, a member of the Lawyers' Association of the Argentine Republic.

After the trial date was announced, the Campaign for Higui's Acquittal called for an open meeting next Monday. “I was scared when they told me about the trial, but today I feel strong enough to face it because I know I won't be alone. My family has always been with me and never discriminated against me. And I have to face this like I've always faced everything, with even more strength now for all the girls who are with me and behind my cause,” Higui told Presentes.

“The prosecutor’s charge is simple homicide against one of his attackers. For now, four days of debate are scheduled, and there will be around fifteen witnesses,” the lawyer said.

She was attacked for being a lesbian; she is being accused of defending herself.

The events for which Higui will be tried took place on October 16, 2016. In the hallway of a house in the Mariló neighborhood of San Miguel, Higui tried to defend herself against a group of men who attacked her for being a lesbian, fatally wounding one of them. The incident came to light in December thanks to the work of organizations that denounced irregularities in the legal process that led to the 42-year-old woman's arrest and charge of simple homicide, without her testimony being considered or her claim of self-defense being taken into account.

[READ MORE: #Argentina: She was attacked for being a lesbian and is in jail for homicide]

Higui was imprisoned for almost eight months, until June 12, 2017, when the court ordered her release. On June 13, she left the Magdalena prison to await trial while free.

It wasn't the first time she'd been attacked. “I've been living under constant harassment since I was 21, because ever since I moved to that neighborhood, the kids have made my life a living hell. If I was at the bus stop with my partner, they'd throw rocks at me, chase me away, tell me to leave, and ask me what I was still doing there. My trans sister and I suffered through this. They even set fire to her house, and a fellow trans woman died in the fire. That's why we moved. She moved a couple of years ago, I moved before that,” Higui told Presentes.

READ MORE: #HiguiLibre: an achievement of feminisms where we all participate”

Higui faces trial

Through the dissemination of her story and the support of the women's, lesbian, transvestite, and trans movements, Higui also began a path of struggle and activism. “Before, I was in the same circle in the neighborhood, I didn't know all the women's groups, I didn't go on Facebook. Now I know all this, which is really great because sometimes you think you're alone. If I came out, it's thanks to all the girls who supported me, the noise they made.”

“Now I walk with my head held high, I’m not ashamed of anything, I walk the way I want, I don’t have to hide anything, I respect myself, I feel cared for, loved. Before, I was afraid, someone would always come and hit me. Now the girls take care of me. Instead of getting hit, I get hugs, we laugh together, they don’t laugh at me. I’m learning a lot of things,” Higui told Presentes.

They call for an open meeting

The working group for Higui's acquittal is calling on social and LGBTQ+ organizations, political groups, independent individuals, and anyone else who wishes to join, to a meeting in Buenos Aires next Monday, the 23rd, at 6:00 PM (Rincón 1041, first floor). "The 'Campaign for Higui's Acquittal' is calling for an open meeting to gather activist support for its participation." This campaign has been carrying out activities for the past six months to raise awareness of Higui's case. “Today we have a confirmed trial date: April 24, 25, 26, and 27, 2019. This is why we believe it is important to gather as much support, solidarity, and participation as possible to achieve Higui's acquittal. For her and for all of us who do not want to live in a society that criminalizes, discriminates against, and oppresses us for exercising a dissident gender identity, opposed to the heteropatriarchal norm,” the members of the group stated in a press release.

READ MORE: The courts are reviewing Higui's request for release: her story is making headlines around the world

The defense will request acquittal.

“We are going to request acquittal because she acted in self-defense. Her attackers were at least six, and she defended herself with whatever she had at hand. A femicide, a hate crime against lesbians, and a corrective rape were prevented. ‘We’re going to make a woman out of you,’ they told her. Higui was brutally beaten; she ended up badly bruised, but they are accusing us of defending ourselves,” said her lawyer, a member of a historic group of lawyers who defended political prisoners during the last military dictatorship.

READ MORE: The courts are reviewing Higui's request for release: her story is making headlines around the world

Conder says the prosecutor only investigated the testimonies of the family of one of Higui's attackers. “When we took over the case (when Higui was released), the only thing there was was Higui's statement, her testimony. But he didn't investigate anything about that,” Conder says. The lawyer believes that “the prosecutor's intervention is biased. We were able to provide some witnesses, because there were no witnesses in Higui's favor. But what Higui told him happened wasn't investigated, and that's an obligation. She's being punished for defending herself.”

Since its re-establishment in 2008, after most of its members were disappeared by the last military dictatorship, the Lawyers' Association has taken on various cases related to the criminalization of social protest, but also emblematic cases of women such as that of Yanina González – accused of abandoning and subsequently killing her two-year-old daughter and finally acquitted after a year and seven months in prison – and of Ailén and Marina Jara, two sisters who wanted to defend themselves against a neighbor who had harassed them for years and were accused of attempted homicide, for which they were sentenced to two years and three months in prison.