World Organizations Condemn Repression Against Striking Mexican Teachers teleSUR English
go to original June 18, 2016

"No to privatization of education and political prisoners. Freedom," reads a protester's banner (teleSUR)

Hundreds of academic, religious, popular, student, human and social rights organizations around the world signed a document Friday that condemns the “brutal repression” exerted by the Mexican government against teachers who reject the education reform by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

The letter was read Friday during a mass protest in Mexico City in which more than 14,000 people took part to demand the president and his education minister negotiate the reform, demanding the release of leaders who were arrested last week and currently face what they consider “wrongful convictions."

“We think that the authorities must commit to dialogue, recognizing the just demands of the teachers' movement, and not to force to solve this and any other conflict, especially in a country marked by violence and impunity,” the letter states.

Coming from the southern states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero, all three of which are victims of widespread violence and impunity, the teachers belong to the CNTE union and Section 22 of the Mexican National Educational Workers Union (SNTE). They have been conducting a series of strikes since May, demanding talks with Pesident Nieto and his Minister of Education Aurelio Nuño.

Arriving in buses and joining their striking teachers, colleages who were already in Mexico City occupied a public square close to the education minister in the historic center of the Mexican capital.

Meanwhile, the government responded with a huge contingent of officers who were deployed near the main square of Mexico City, known as Zocalo, which holds the president’s office.

Read the rest at teleSUR

Related: Teachers' Blockade Costs Life of Patient in Oaxaca-Bound Ambulance (Mexico News Daily)

Related: Thousands of Mexican Teachers Take the Streets to Protest Neoliberal Reform (teleSUR)

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