Suspended Teachers extend their voluntary fast and declare an indefinate hunger strike
by Red Morazanica de Informacion
Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, 09 May 2011
Various teachers suspended from their jobs for one, two and six months began a voluntary fast for 24 hours on May 4 and have now declared themselves to be on an indefinate hunger strike and in a state of calamity.
The educators who began the fast on Wednesday (May 4) outside of the National Congress were evicted at midnight by the police and had to continue their protest in the Plaza La Merced; they have stated their willingness to maintain this method of pressure until the regime of Lobo Sosa returns to the negotiating table where negotiations were initiated last April and have remained suspended without any answer from the head of the regime.
Educators from the Province of Francisco Morazan and from Comayagua have joined the protest initiated by educators from the Province of Colon and it is expected that teachers from the rest of the country will join in the coming days.
Through an emergency decree, the regime put into effect the suspension of 305 teachers out of the total who participated last March and April in the peaceful protests demand[ing] back pay, the cessation of privatization of education, payment of the debt that the State owes to the National Institute of Teachers' Benefits (Instituto Nacional de Previsión del Magisterio) and respect for the Teachers Statute (the law governing teachers' salaries and benefits- translators' note).
