A Costa Rican actress who is known for her dedication to social activism is accusing a Canadian man of lewd behavior and obscenity after an unpleasant encounter in San Jose. According to a news report filed by Angie Guerrero of online news daily Costa Rica Hoy, the incident occurred on Thursday afternoon in Curridabat, a municipality in the eastern suburbs of the capital city.

Rocio Carranza is known for her work on films such as Presos, The Accursed and El Xendra. She explained to Costa Rica Hoy that she was out on a 10K run when a man brandishing photographs of male genital organs suddenly approached her. Ms. Carranza stated:

This isn’t something new; it happens often to me. Men approach me as they masturbate… I have even been thrown against the wall just so that a man can put his hands on me.

The report by Costa Rica Hoy does not explain whether the photographs of the phalli were of the Canadian expat. It is also not clear exactly when or how Ms. Carranza ascertained the nationality of the alleged pervert; nonetheless, she explained that she fought back against the suspected miscreant by recording him on digital video:

This video is something small, but it is all I could get… I turned around and started filming, and he covered himself.

Although Ms. Carranza claims that she somehow filmed the North American man for more than two hours, the video was edited down to 35 seconds for the purpose of uploading it to the popular social network Facebook. Ms. Carranza and the purported deviant ended up in a police precinct, where she pressed the aforementioned charges.

Ms. Carranza added that she actually ran into the suspected reprobate as she was walking towards a bus stop around 7:30 on that fateful evening. A suspicious vehicle pulled up beside her, and:

I tried to hide, but the car kept coming forward as I was looking for cover. It was the Canadian; he got off the car and started coming towards me. He was with a woman… I ran away and started yelling: Police! It’s him!

It so happens that one of the issues that Ms. Carranza advocates as a social activist is the right of women to not feel sexually accosted in public. She feels that not many women feel empowered enough to ask for help or defend themselves in these situations.