“You are not alone,” was the message tens of thousands of supporters sent to striking teachers in Oaxaca during a massive demonstration in Mexico City on Sunday.
Protesters marched against the government’s violent response to the teacher strikes and other dissension, as well as Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s neoliberal policies that spurred the educator protests and emboldened a wider backlash against his regime of privatization and repression—fueling many calls for his resignation.
Four thousand police were reportedly deployed across the city Sunday to counter the demonstration.
Sunday’s march was called by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and the leader of the progressive Morena party, who posted a video to his Facebook page last week asking people to denounce the controversial education reforms, as well as the “political mafia” and “hypocritical conservatives” in the country.
According to TeleSUR, the former presidential candidate also posed a question directly to the government of Peña Nieto: “Why not choose humanism? Why not search for reconciliation and peace?”
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