More Police Repression in Mexico

Police Attack Mexico City Students Protesting the Violence in Atenco

By Bertha Rodríguez Santos
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Mexico City

May 11, 2006

About 200 students who were blockading a highway this morning to demand the release of the political prisoners from Atenco were once again repressed by some 300 police under the command of the Department of Public Safety’s Task Force Group (AFT* in its Spanish initials).

Photos: D.R. 2006 Erwin Slim

Students from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), of the School for Science and Humanities (CCH) South and the National Pedagogic University (UPN), among other adherents to the Other Campaign, were blocking the “Periférico Avenue” highway near the ENAH when they were attacked with pepper gas and clubs by members of the Mexico City police under the command of the an AFT officer, according to Other Journalism correspondent Erwin Slim Torres, who was on the scene.

Several people were brutally beaten, including David Jaramillo, photographer for the daily newspaper El Universal. After the police intervention, many students fled into the ENAH buildings to hide from the police. Inside the school there are currently several wounded people.

At this point in the morning (10:30) the Periférico was still blockaded.

Meanwhile, it is impossible to enter or leave Mexico City, as students from the CCH South have now blockaded the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway. According to reports from Other Campaign members, all road access to the capital has been closed in solidarity with the people of San Salvador Atenco and Texcoco who were attacked on May 3 and 4.

* In a previous version of this story, it was erroneously reported that the police were being led by an unknown group called the “AFP.”)

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