[1][2][3] Bar Abanicos was a popular establishment located on Vargas Machuca and Juan Jaramillo streets, where on the night of June 14, 1997, the election of the first gay queen of Cuenca took place.
[4] After the election, a party was held at the bar and, after eleven o'clock at night,[5] members of the police commanded by Mayor Diego Crespo burst into the place and proceeded to arrest those attending the event,[4] separating them into a line for "heterosexuals" and another for "maricones".
Terreros decided to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Azuay and to personally approach the city's media to demand less discriminatory treatment and to report on the abuses suffered during the arrests, which generated more positive coverage,[12] particularly considering that among the detainees were members of upper-class families from Cuenca.
[14] Shortly thereafter, students from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cuenca decided to make an installation in Calderon Park in favor of sexual diversity, but the municipality denied the corresponding permits due to the influence of people close to Opus Dei.
However, the students ignored the refusal and gathered in the park during the early hours of the morning to set up the installation, which included a bed with a sign that read "Sáquenme de aquí"[15] and colored condoms filled with water.
The newspaper report also revealed that the raid was carried out after the police received a letter on May 30 of the same year, with signatures from local residents and supported by the faculty of jurisprudence of the Catholic University of Cuenca, requesting that the bar be closed due to the "immoral conduct" of the clientele and the "scandal" they generated.
[16] As a result, the organizations FEDAEPS, Famivida, Tolerancia and Coccinelle decided to form a single front under the name Triángulo Andino,[note 7] to fight for the decriminalization of homosexuality and to protest against abuses committed against people of sexual diversity.
[14][18] The next step before being able to present the unconstitutionality action before the Constitutional Court was the collection of 1,000 signatures,[19] a process in which the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights and the trans association Coccinelle took the lead.