| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2008 
Mexico Detains Man in Child-Stripping Case
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
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Mexico City – Authorities in central Mexico detained a master of ceremonies on Thursday who allegedly offered children money to strip in front of a crowd at a town fair last month.
Puebla state prosecutors said they plan to charge Leonardo Julian Hidalgo with corrupting minors and public indecency.
A video posted online showing part of the Nov. 29 festival in the small, largely Indian town of Hueytlalpan shows children being called into the center of an improvised bullring by someone speaking over a loudspeaker.
The children were ridiculed but still mostly clothed. Then the man on the loudspeaker asks them to squat down, put their hands on their necks and spin around.
The state attorney general's office said there is evidence the children were then asked to take their clothes off.
"Several children participated, of whom at least two stripped completely," the state attorney general's office said in a statement.
Mexican media reported that the boys were 12 and 13 years old, and that they were offered about 150 pesos ($11.30).
The case has struck a nerve in Puebla, where human rights groups accuse the state's governor of protecting an accused child abuser. He denies the allegations.
Prosecutors acted a day after Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said it was watching the case closely and studying the possibility of taking over the investigation. |
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