Paramilitaries Target Striking Teachers in Chiapas with Police Permission teleSUR
go to original July 21, 2016

Teachers pull barricades used by policemen during a protest against President Enrique Pena Nieto's education reform. (Reuters)

Mexican State and municipal police accompanied by paramilitaries and hooded individuals with guns forcefully evacuated the only camp that civil society and teachers of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) held in the state of Chiapas, Wednesday.

In a statement the CNTE said that 10 trucks loaded with a group of masked men came to the camp at highway San Cristóbal-Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Chiapas where about a hundred protesters were gathering before dispersing them with force. The CNTE was on high alert and reinstated its blockade soon after, student activist Omar Garcia.

There were reports that between one and two teachers were killed in the clashes and that two were detained. Videos circulating on social media website showed the masked men took part in cracking down on the protesting teachers, apparently with police permission. The news comes about a month after the Nochixtlan massacre claimed 12 lives in the state of Oaxaca.



Leaders of the CNTE have been protesting over the past few months against the neoliberal education reforms implemented in 2013 by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Read the rest at teleSUR

Related: Zapatistas Reiterate Support for CNTE After Paramilitary Attack (teleSUR)

Related: Mexico’s Teachers Conflict: How It All Started (The Yucatan Times)

Related: Teachers Protest at Tests as Talks on Dispute Continue (Morning Star)

Related: Mexico Teacher Protests: For Many, Anger Boiled at Being Left Out (The Christian Science Monitor)

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