Community Radio under attack in Oaxaca!

This just in from Reclaim the Media!

Please join us this Monday, June 19th, at 1:00 PM, in front of the Seattle Mexican consulate, to protest last Wednesday's brutal police attack on a non-violent encampment of public schoolteachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, and on their community radio station, Radio Planton.

On Wedneday, June 14th, 3000 state police attacked an encampment of public schoolteachers, in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, and ransacked their community radio station.

The 70,000 teachers had been out on strike for over 3 weeks demanding a modest cost-of-living adjustment, free school breakfasts, and additional resources for school infrastructure. They were attacked at dawn, while many teachers were still asleep, in the encampment, with their children.

Police dogs, tear gas, rubber bullets, and real bullets were among the arsenal used by the state police.

The teachers' radio station (Radio Planton) was ransacked. All of the equipment was destroyed. The radio personnel were all beaten and arrested.

Radio Planton went on the air exactly one year ago, and has provided a much-needed media alternative for the city of Oaxaca. The station had been transmitting twenty-four hours a day, throughout the teachers' strike, receiving hundreds of calls from civil society expressing their support and solidarity for the teachers and for the station. The radio personnel continued transmitting even as the riot police entered their facility and began attacking their colleagues. I personally participated in the
founding of Radio Planton, and have continued to be an active participant in the station. The people who were beaten and arrested on Wednesday, when the station was ransacked, are dear friends of mine.

The confirmed list of wounded from Wednesday's police attack (released today) tops 90 people. Some of the people arrested still have not been accounted for (including two of the Radio Planton staff). It has been confirmed that a pregnant teacher miscarried as a result of the police violence she suffered, and was later denied access to an ambulance by the same police who attacked her.

This police repression comes 5 weeks after the violent attack on the community of San Salvador Atenco, which resulted in the death of two youth and the confirmed sexual assault of over 37 women. Just two weeks before that, striking mine workers, in the state of Michoacan, were attacked by federal police, leaving two miners dead from bullet wounds.

We are asking you to please join us to show solidarity with the schoolteachers in Oaxaca and to denounce the repeated use of deadly police force to repress workers, communities, and independent media fighting for social and economic justice.

The Mexican consulate is located in downtown Seattle at 2132 3rd Avenue.

For more information contact Jill at 206-851-6785, info@corrugate.org

More information about the situation in Oaxaca available at www.narconews.com and www.corrugate.org. In Spanish at www.mexico.indymedia.org. And hear is the rest.

Categories: Organized Labor, National News, Media Activism