TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ — Six school workers who had broken a strike declared by the dissident National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) in the southern state of Chiapas faced public humiliation and had their heads shaved.
Early reports blamed the CNTE for the humiliations, but in interviews, the teachers who were humiliated suggested that it had been members of farmworkers organizations including the Emiliano Zapata Independent Popular Organization (Opiez). Armando Castellanos, a strikebreaker who was shaved and humiliated, said that although he was unable to identify the perpetrators, he is sure that they were not dissident teachers.
The strikebreakers were seized in the town of Comitán on Tuesday, while on their way to Chiapas capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez to deliver lists of teachers who had been attending classes despite the strike. They marched barefoot through town with signs hanging around their necks labeling them as “traitors to the country.”
The hair was forcibly cut off several of them as a crowd watched.
The CNTE, a dissident union that is especially powerful in the southern states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca, began an indefinite strike on May 15 to demand that the federal government negotiate with them about the implementation of an education reform package.
Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño Mayer says he will work with prosecutors to punish those responsible.
INDIGNANTE. #CNTEChiapas corta cabello a profes sustitutos y les cuelgan letrero “Me pelonean por traidor” #Comitán pic.twitter.com/nMmL968kWl
— Tinta Fresca Chiapas (@tinta_fresca) May 31, 2016
