Mexico: Stop the attacks against CLEP-CEDEP
Written by In Defence of Marxism Tuesday, 24 November 2009
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We republish here the appeal from the Mexican CLEP-CEDEP students that are facing a campaign of legal harassment and threats from the authorities. Five of them, all leading student activists, are facing jail sentences for the only crime of having defended free education. The authorities are accusing them on trumped up charges as a result of the students' strike to defend free education on June 4th. The legal costs involved in this campaign have already run up to 825 euros (16,000 Mexican pesos). We make an appeal to all IDOM readers to sign the protest letter, raise this issue in your organisation and donate generously to the Legal Defence Fund.
Read this appeal in Spanish.
The economic crisis has driven to despair the Calderón administration, the state's finances are suffering like never before, reflected in further adjustments and cuts in public spending, especially in areas related to the needs of working families of the cities and countryside. These budget adjustments and cuts have resulted in strong concern among students, teachers and workers in state education, which perceive their work and education conditions are deteriorating day by day, making the ferment of discontent increasingly evident.
Particularly in the state universities there are levels of tension that place on the agenda the feasibility of large mass demonstrations rejecting the policies of Calderon and the university authorities, encouraging the latter to promote reactionary measures that attempt to prohibit at all costs this discontent from being transformed into an open struggle in defense of state education and labour rights. Now they want to put in place constant persecution and harassment against anyone who dares to speak out against attacks on education.
Recently, this same policy has been implemented, against young students of the IPN, UNAM and UAM. In the case of the Polytechnic, the federal government has not been the only one who has driven this policy, but also the education authorities.
Written by In Defence of Marxism Tuesday, 24 November 2009
var addthis_pub="marxistcom";
var addthis_options = 'facebook, favorites, digg, google, reddit, myspace, stumbleupon, delicious, technorati, twitter, email, more';
We republish here the appeal from the Mexican CLEP-CEDEP students that are facing a campaign of legal harassment and threats from the authorities. Five of them, all leading student activists, are facing jail sentences for the only crime of having defended free education. The authorities are accusing them on trumped up charges as a result of the students' strike to defend free education on June 4th. The legal costs involved in this campaign have already run up to 825 euros (16,000 Mexican pesos). We make an appeal to all IDOM readers to sign the protest letter, raise this issue in your organisation and donate generously to the Legal Defence Fund.
Read this appeal in Spanish.
The economic crisis has driven to despair the Calderón administration, the state's finances are suffering like never before, reflected in further adjustments and cuts in public spending, especially in areas related to the needs of working families of the cities and countryside. These budget adjustments and cuts have resulted in strong concern among students, teachers and workers in state education, which perceive their work and education conditions are deteriorating day by day, making the ferment of discontent increasingly evident.
Particularly in the state universities there are levels of tension that place on the agenda the feasibility of large mass demonstrations rejecting the policies of Calderon and the university authorities, encouraging the latter to promote reactionary measures that attempt to prohibit at all costs this discontent from being transformed into an open struggle in defense of state education and labour rights. Now they want to put in place constant persecution and harassment against anyone who dares to speak out against attacks on education.
Recently, this same policy has been implemented, against young students of the IPN, UNAM and UAM. In the case of the Polytechnic, the federal government has not been the only one who has driven this policy, but also the education authorities.
In 2007 they were responsible for one of the most severe attacks that the student movement has suffered in this institution. Through a gangster-like operation, 10 students from this school were arrested with the sue of extreme violence; they were put on trial and finally 4 of them were found guilty despite the inconsistency and falsehood of the evidence in the case.
To this day the authorities of the IPN continue to attack young people who belong to the CLEP-CEDEP. By apocryphal letters, purportedly sent from various social organizations, they continue to slander, threaten the comrades, and police investigation were launched for crimes that were not even explained.
This is in addition to the campaign that has also been carried out against members of the CLEP-CEDEP at UNAM. Similarly,the comrades are harassed, they are followed home, with pictures being taken from suspicious cars parked outside their homes and, moreover, appeals have been made, over the Internet, to physically them when they are see in schools.
In both cases, the IPN and UNAM, are part of the process of class struggle that we are witnessing all over the country. The mass mobilization of students and workers in defence of the SME and LyF have left the government of Felipe Calderón shaking, and who, like a cornered dog, launches furious attacks.
It is known by the labour and student movement, that such methods are used by the government to intimidate social leaders to get them to desist from their struggle, but what they don't not realise is that it takes more than that to get a social fighter to abandon his or her conviction to fight for a better world for workers and their families.
Given that the education authorities and the federal government are still using these kinds of methods to attack social organizations, members of the CLEP-CEDEP have made it clear that more youth will join the fight and we will link up our movement more closely with the workers' movement. We will seek solidarity, wherever necessary, not only nationally but also internationally and we place full responsibility on the government of Felipe Calderón, his representative in the IPN, Enrique Villa Rivera and José Narro Robles Rector, if any attacks, whether verbal, physical or psychological, are carried out against members of the CLEP-CEDEP.
We call on the labour movement and student movement in Mexico and the world to defend, together with us, the demands listed below.
The youth and workers undersigned:
1. We condemn the repressive measures that the government of Felipe Calderón and his cronies in the schools, Jose Villa Rivera and Jose Narro Robles, have deployed against the student movement and members of the CLEP-CEDEP and the labour movement, unions and social organizations.
2. We sympathize with the struggles that youth, workers and, in general, the people of Mexico, are organising against the anti-labour and anti-popular policies that the right-wing government of Felipe Calderón is implementing.
3. We demand the immediate withdrawal of the Preliminary Investigations against Jay Claudia Aguilar and Luis Enrique Martinez Orihuela, as well as any charges, as they have done nothing but to defend the rights of students and workers.
4. We demand an end to harassment that Hector Aguilar Campos has been submitted in the last period.
5. We also demand unconditional respect for democratic and trade union rights of all workers in the IPN, which is why we call for an immediate halt to the campaign of persecution and harassment that has been launched by the authorities of this institution against workers Samuel Sotelo Crespo, Patricia Gongora.
6. We hold responsible the government of Felipe Calderón, Enrique Villa Rivera, Director General of IPN and Jose Narro Robles, rector of UNAM, for any attack against the colleagues mentioned above or any other member of CLEP-CEDEP.
7. We pledge to carry out a campaign of solidarity in our ranks and our unions to report on the case of these comrades and the resolution you may have.
Stop attacks on the youth of CLEP-CEDEP!United and organized ... We will win!
Send this appeal using a form here.
Or send it per e-mail to:
Dr. José Narro Robles
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narro@servidor.unam.mx
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Dr. Enrique Villa RiveraDirector General of IPN\n ' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ' ); //-->">
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dirgral@ipn.mx
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jvilla@ipn.mx
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Lic Fernando Gomez MontSecretary of the Interior
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secretario@segob.gob.mx
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