Striking
teachers are fighting for their livelihood, but the head of a
right-wing business group has called on the government to use more
repression.
Mexico's
Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal announced Thursday
that the government would provide financial support to businesses
affected by the ongoing protests by striking teachers affiliated with
the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE union.
Meanwhile,
in response to demands from the right-wing Business Coordinating
Council for more police repression against teachers, Interior
Minister Osorio Chong said the government was already using state
security forces to forcibly end protests by the CNTE.
Juan
Pablo Castañón, head of the Business Coordinating Council, said on
Wednesday that the government needed to ensure the return of normal
economic activity and should thus turn to state security forces in
order to ensure the “human rights of everyone else” were being
respected.
Chong,
speaking through the media, said they were “already doing so.”
Teachers
affiliated with the CNTE union have been protesting President Enrique
Peña Nieto's so-called education reform, which critics say is aimed
at justifying mass layoffs and does little to improve education in
Mexico.
The
conflict between the teachers and the government heated up after
police repression in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca on June 19 left at least 10
people dead.
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report:
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