When protesting goes too far...
Tuesday August 21 8:56 AM ET
Man Chops Off Testicle in Job Protest
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - A Peruvian man who last year sliced off his penis
to draw attention to his jobless plight on Monday chopped off one of his
testicles in front of the parliament building, police and hospital
officials said.
"I'm doing all this to protest my lousy situation," Eduardo Veliz, 36,
told doctors after his dramatic stunt.
Veliz, now a poorly paid laborer, hacked off his penis last September
outside parliament after failing to meet the Congress head to ask for
work. It was successfully reimplanted.
Witnesses said Veliz shouted at the door of Congress that he wanted to
see Congress President Carlos Ferrero.
"When he couldn't see him, he got out a sharp knife and cut off his
testicle," a policeman, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Firefighters rushed over to Veliz, who was bleeding heavily, and he was
taken to a hospital where doctors said he suffered a "traumatic
castration" of the right testicle.
"He's a laborer. Last year he was asking for work ... this time he
wanted a pay rise because he says he earns a paltry wage," said Carlos
Viera, spokesman at the Dos de Mayo hospital which treated Veliz on both
occasions.
Peru's President Alejandro Toledo has pledged to create jobs and
alleviate the suffering of more than half the nation's 26 million people
who live in poverty.
Despite his mutilation, Viera said Veliz could still enjoy "a normal sex
life."
