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Statement on the violence against students and teachers in Honduras

(August 13, 2009) CAUT strongly condemns the excessive use of force against students and staff protesting inside the campus of the National Autonomous University in the Honduras capital of Tegucigalpa.

According to reports, riot police entered the university campus in tanks last week and fired tear gas and deployed water canons to disperse 3,000 students and staff protesting the June 28 coup against the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya.

Police reportedly beat many of the protestors. The university’s rector, Julieta Castellanos attempted to calm both sides, but she too was brutally beaten by riot police.

Education International reports that teacher union leaders have been targeted in the ongoing repression. Primary school teacher Roger Abraham Vallejo, a 38-year-old union member, was shot in the head on July 30 during a demonstration. Another union activist, Martín Florencio Rivera, died after being stabbed 27 times as he left Vallejo’s wake. Saturnino Sanchez, president of one of the teachers’ unions in Honduras, was severely beaten.

CAUT stands in solidarity with students and teachers in Honduras in calling on authorities to immediately end the violent repression of protests, to respect and uphold civil liberties, and to restore democratic governance.