(AMARC/IFEX) – AMARC has expressed its deep concern about the use of force to solve social conflicts, especially to quell social protest, following the incidents which occurred in Oaxaca on 14 June 2006, which included the detention of the directors of Radio Plantón 92.1 FM, a radio station which was reporting in a sympathetic manner […]
(AMARC/IFEX) – AMARC has expressed its deep concern about the use of force to solve social conflicts, especially to quell social protest, following the incidents which occurred in Oaxaca on 14 June 2006, which included the detention of the directors of Radio Plantón 92.1 FM, a radio station which was reporting in a sympathetic manner on the teachers’ protest, allowing them to voice their opinions.
At 3:40 a.m. (local time), Oaxaca state police attacked the teachers who had been gathered in the main plaza in the state capital Juárez, since 22 May. The police also evicted the people broadcasting information about the teachers’ protests from Radio Plantón 92.1 FM, “beating the colleagues and destroying the equipment the radio station uses to operate,” the radio station’s personnel told AMARC.
Spokespeople for the teachers’ movement have stated that the eviction was carried out in a “brutal and violent manner”, and accuse Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz of “orchestrating repression” against those critical of his administration of the state.
AMARC and various other institutions, social organizations and human rights groups strongly urge both Oaxacan and federal authorities to stop using violence in the conflict with the state’s teachers, immediately free those people who were arbitrarily detained, and conduct a prompt and impartial investigation of all the public security bodies involved in the incidents.
AMARC asks Oaxaca state, national and international human rights organizations to act swiftly in order to document the human rights violations by the federal and state security organisms and calls upon Mexican society to follow this situation closely and to repudiate both the use of force against social movements and the treatment of these movements as criminals.
