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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. The body of Alejo Portillo, a 20-year-old gay man from Misiones province, was found on December 30th with 42 stab wounds in the town of Colonia Azara . LGBTI activists in Misiones are demanding that the crime be considered a hate crime.

This morning, family, friends, and activists known to Alejo held a march to demand justice for the young man's death. The demonstration stretched from the entrance to the town to the local police station.

Portillo's body was found by his family in a wooded area of ​​Lot 200 in the town of Colonia Azara, Misiones province. The young man had disappeared last Thursday around 9 a.m. The following day, Friday, December 30, his mother filed a missing person report at the Azara police station. That same day, his own family members found him murdered. 

“At the police station, they told her they had to wait 24 hours. So the next day, my sister (the young man’s mother) started looking for him. They finally found him on a farm that I don’t know who owns. His brother-in-law, the husband of Emanuel’s sister, found him,” Rosana Benítez, his aunt, told Presentes. She refers to him as Emanuel because that was Alejo’s legal name: Emanuel Rosendo.  

The autopsy confirmed the presence of 42 stab wounds, six of them penetrating. The case is being handled by the Court of Instruction Number Four of Apóstoles, under the jurisdiction of Magistrate Miguel Ángel Faría.

For their part, the Scientific Police confirmed the presence of a backpack 700 meters from where the body was found. Inside the black backpack, which bore the Nike logo, were a butcher knife with a white plastic handle and a pair of pliers. The backpack was seized in order to collect biological samples and conduct the corresponding tests, Misiones police reported. 

They demand that it be treated as a hate crime

Activists from the Trans, Transvestite, Non-Binary, Queer, Gay, and Lesbian Community of Oberá, Misiones, issued a statement , which they disseminated through social media, demanding that this murder be treated as a hate crime.

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"Given these events, we believe it is important to highlight and emphasize that the murder of Alejo Portillo is a hate crime. Alejo was stabbed because he was gay. Because of his sexual orientation and gender identity. Because he was a person of non-heterosexual identity," they stressed.

"It's a hateful situation."

"The fact that a 20-year-old friend was stabbed 42 times is clearly a hate crime, a desire to exterminate that person's existence," María Alejandro, a non-binary gay man and leader of the LGBT community in Oberá, told Presentes.

In the statement they considered that the crime is the " result of gender violence suffered by the LGBTIQ+ community in Misiones, made invisible in and by cisheteronormative political, media and legal discourses."

In this regard, they drew connections to other hate crimes that occurred in the province. One of them is the murder of Evelyn Rojas, a trans woman who was beaten to death in Posadas. In March 2022, Criminal Court No. 1 of Posadas ruled it a femicide and a hate crime based on gender and expression. For this reason, it sentenced Ramón Da Silva to life imprisonment . They also mentioned the stabbing death of the gay pastor Fabian Kreischer.

“These are gender-based hate crimes that express discrimination, prejudice, marginalization, and rejection of the identities and expressions of the LGBTQ+ community in Misiones,” they stated. They demanded that “Ema’s murder be tried with a gender and human rights perspective.”

The police work was carried out by the staff of the Investigations Division of Apóstoles and Concepción de la Sierra, together with the specialists of the Homicide Directorate of the Misiones Police.

Regarding the police actions, María Alejandro considered them to be "negligence." "Today, no one has been arrested in connection with the case. There isn't even a single procedure underway related to the investigation. The only information we've obtained is related to the autopsy, but not to the preliminary investigation," she said.

On the other hand, Marcela, a member of the Classist and Combative Current (CCC) organization, to which Alejo also belonged, agreed with the activist's comments. "In Azara there were two assemblies, a meeting with the police commissioner, and there still hasn't even been a report submitted to the court in Apóstoles," she said.

The activist added: "The meeting with the commissioner was deplorable because we know the pace of the justice system, we know which departments are responsible for providing answers. We, as an organization, will not stop until we get a response. Those who should have been there—human rights and the gender office—were nowhere to be seen."

Alejo in the memory of his family

Regarding Alejo, his aunt recalled that he spent "a lot of time with his grandmother," didn't want to be away, and was always looking out for her. His grandmother, speaking of the young man, said, "I lost my son."

"He was always a fighter, he always earned his living working, with any odd job. Lately he was selling orchids. He had his own cactus and orchid nursery," she said about the life Alejo had been leading lately.

Regarding the possibility that it was a hate crime due to her sexual orientation, Rosana said, "These things can't keep happening." "We have to open our minds; we can't live with such a primitive mindset. Everyone has the right to be respected. We can't go through life hurting people, psychologically or in any other way. Everyone has the right to be happy being who they choose to be with their sexuality."