Repression of teachers in Honduras

According to JASS (Just Associates), 'the teachers’ movement, whose membership is approximately 80% women, has been protesting a series of state‐sponsored attacks on public education in Honduras, including the privatisation of a teachers’ pension fund from which millions of lempira have been raided. The teachers’ unions are demanding the return of these funds and explanation of how they have been spent. In addition, the teachers’ movement is protesting the Administration’s proposed General Law of Education, which would privatize pre‐kinder, kindergarten and high school education.' This repression of teachers protesting against the privatisation of education, is part of a policy of persecution promoted by the Honduran government, paramilitary groups and death squads against opponents of the 28 June 2009 coup d'etat, when hooded men kidnapped President Manuel Zelaya, took him by force to Costa Rica and put in power Roberto Micheletti. Elections later put Lobo in power. The US imperialists backed the coup all the way behind the scenes, while publicly mouthing opposition to it - RATB.

The school year begins with repression
by murielsoy, 21 February 2011, ResistenciaHonduras.net

Repression against teachers. This is the reply given by the regime of Porfirio Lobo Sosa to professional teachers: through police repression in La Ceiba, Atlántida and [Rio] Guasaule in the south of the country.

Teachers who were demanding respect for the Teachers’ Statute, were protesting the cancellation of wages to more than 5 thousand of its members and against the privatization of education, held peaceful demonstrations today and were again attacked with tear gas, beaten, and illegally detained.

The preventive police armed arrested and put down today the teachers who were protesting peacefully in the city of La Ceiba with batons, tear gas, firearms and any device that will serve as a weapon.

According to a report, about 30 teachers were arrested at about 11 am by the police and evicted from the Danto School with tear gas and clubs. Most of those detained are women, who apart from suffering the effects of pepper spray and tear gas, were brutally beaten, presenting several of them body injuries.

The protest involved about 350 teachers in the Atlantic region. After violently evicting them with tear gas, the police chased those who had fled the area throughout the neighborhood.

In order to get the protesters, police could be seen jumping walls, stopping vehicles circulating the area to cross the street, and tracing the whereabouts of any teacher. Before the assault, which was brutal, teachers could not defend themselves because the police in La Ceiba used their artillery to violently attack them.

Teachers union leader Professor Luis Sosa was brutally beaten by the Honduran police force, 20 August 2010.

The general coordinator of COFADEH, Bertha Oliva, contacted an officer named Fúnez, who said there were no injured protesters, but this human rights organization has credible information that at least a dozen teachers were brutally beaten.

Teachers have bruise marks on their arms and other parts of their bodies as a result of the blows received by the police at the time of arrest.

List of detainees in La Ceiba:

Concepcion Reyes Cenia
Cinthia Ruiz Díaz
Roxana Velásquez
Aura Estela Pory
Julia Bobadilla
Felipe Valladares
Carmen Zelaya Fúnez
Evelin Lizeth Contreras Lazo
Idalia Sanchez Cubas Dinora
Telmo Chirinos
Brenda Flores
Marta Lidia Mendoza
Clarisa Rodriguez
Maradiaga Lohany
Ivis Reyes
Germain del Cid
Arely Delma Arzu
Salgado Delsy
Nidia Maldonado
Carmen Antúnez
Maritza Julia Deraz
Magdaleno Hernández
José de la Paz Korea
Sofia Mejia
Saul Mejia
Ana Patricia Mendoza
Luis María Cruz Díaz
Geovanny René Molina
Filiberto Hector Argueta
Conrado Ramos Cornejo Zavala

Original SOURCE: defensoresenlinea.com