Mexico: outrage as Amlo suggests critics guilty of ‘gender-based violence’ against him

Amlo at a Mexican press conference earlier this week. ‘Everything they say to me, isn’t that gender-based violence?’ he said on Wednesday. Photograph: Luis Barron/Shutterstock

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican president, has sparked ridicule and outrage after suggesting during a news conference that criticism leveled against him could be considered a form of gender-based violence.

The comments on Wednesday touched a nerve in Mexico, where the government of López Obrador has been unable to tackle soaring levels of violence against women, and where a resurgent feminist movement has become a thorn in the president’s side.