How the death of a student in Mexico raises questions about police violence | Police news
A tradition of protest
Matumatza, the school attended school, is located on the outskirts of the city, not far from the highway where it died.
It is part of a national network of normal schools funded by the government, also known as teacher training colleges, where low -income students can benefit from schooling and pension costs.
The history of Mexico of normal schools extends until the 1910s and 1920s, when the country emerged from its revolutionary period. Many school study programs focus on social justice, and students are encouraged to occupy jobs in poorly served communities.
But this revolutionary spirit has also made normal schools of schools for activism. The “normalists”, as the students are called, have a long tradition of protest.
Sometimes they block the highways. Other times, they occupy toll tickets. One of their most famous activities is the non -violent requisition of local buses: the practice is so common that many bus drivers simply can withdraw when their vehicle is on board.
Professor Tanalis Padilla, historian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that public reaction to such demonstrations had been mixed. Some people support students wholeheartedly. Others, she said, again express “radical children in the streets”.
According to Padilla, coverage of negative news contributed to this skepticism. “He is sure to say that the media have always been against them, calling them vandals and things like that.”
Padilla explained that this perception stems from the educational program of normal schools, which is rooted in socialist and collectivist policy.
“With the Cold War in the 1970s and 80s, the media portrayed schools as homes of radicalism and social disturbance,” she said.
Over the years, numerous demonstrations of Normalsta have led to violent clashes with the police – and even death.
The most sadly famous incident took place in September 2014, when 43 students from the Rural Teachers’ College Ayotzinapa, another normal school, took over a bus in the state of Guerrero. They planned to use it to reach a demonstration in Mexico City.
What happened then remains uncertain. But it is believed that the students were kidnapped and killed with the knowledge of local police.
Not one of the students has never been revised alive. Cartonized remains belonging to three of Ayotzinapa students were then identified using DNA tests.
The Ayotzinapa case aroused an indicative and generalized support for normalists in Mexico and abroad.
“What happened was so shocking and so vicious that there was a general reaction of sympathy” towards the normalists, explained Padilla.
