SF Protest at Mexican Consulate in Support of Public Education

6/22 SF Protest At Mexican Consulate Against Massacre of Teachers, Supporters of Public Education
12 PM Wednesday Mexican Consulate 532 Folsom St. San Francisco

BAY AREA GROUPS DENOUNCE KILLING OF TEACHERS BY GOVERNMENT FORCES IN OAXACA

Representatives of teacher unions, labor, religious and human rights organizations are planning to picket the Mexican consulate on Wednesday, June 22, at 12 noon, to protest the police attacks since Sunday that have killed more than eight and wounded more than 100 teachers and their supporters in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

“We are condemning in the strongest possible terms this government repression against people asserting their basic free speech and union rights,” said Francisco Herrera, a member of the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 and director of Trabajo Cultural Caminante, one of the social justice organizations supporting the picket at the consulate, located at 532 Folsom.

On June 19, federal armed forces fired on teachers and supporters in the town of Nochixtlan, killing at least four people and wounding 30 more. More police shootings have followed as protests continue.

The teachers were protesting the imprisonment, in early June, of the top two leaders of the Oaxacan teachers union and the Oaxacan governor Gabino Cué Monteagudo's imposition of a new federal education code. The changes to education law include requiring tests to qualify as teachers. Teachers -- most of them serving in indigenous, bi-lingual classrooms -- say the test do not reflect the needs of their students and are an unwelcome intervention by a hostile federal bureaucracy.

The San Francisco human rights defenders - including Francisco Herrera, Lita Blanc, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, and a representative from the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco - are planning to deliver a letter to Consul General Andres Isaac Roemer Slomianski calling for an end to the killings, lethal attacks and repression against teachers and their supporters. Demands also include release of the imprisoned union leaders and others detained in the protests, reinstatement of teachers fired for striking, and national negotiations without conditions with the teachers union, the National Coordination of Education Workers (Spanish acronym CNTE).

Also, protesters at the Mexican Consulate are sending a message to the U.S. Congress to suspend military aid to Mexico until the Mexican government stops these massive abuses of labor and human rights.