Education under Attack 2014 - Mexico

Teachers in more than 75 schools were threatened, more than 50 students, teachers, academics and education officials were killed or abducted with their whereabouts unknown, and nanotechnology researchers were targeted with bombs in 2009-2012.

Context

Attacks on teachers, academics and students took place in the context of high levels of general violence, including the abduction without trace of large numbers of children and adults.^[1061] Heavily armed criminal groups fought over territory and control of the drug trade – the main source of heroin and cocaine entering the United States – and against security forces trying to dismantle them.^[1062] The drug cartels, which have thousands of armed men, have increasingly diversified their operations, turning to other illicit trades such as kidnappings and extortion. The federal government began intensive security operations against them in 2006, backed by 96,000 troops.^[1063] In the course of counternarcotics operations, security forces committed widespread human rights violations, including killings, torture and forced disappearances.^[1064] According to the government, more than 70,000 people were killed in drug-related violence from December 2006 to December 2012, and more than 26,000 more were victims of disappearances or otherwise went missing.^[1065]

Teachers were among a long list of targets, reportedly because of their regular salary.^[1066] Parents and children were attacked at schools and police were targeted while trying to protect educational establishments. In many cases, there was insufficient evidence to establish who was responsible for the attacks because few crimes were properly investigated by the authorities.

In primary education, net enrolment was 96 per cent in 2011 and in secondary education it was 67 per cent; gross enrolment at tertiary level was 28 per cent. Adult literacy was 93 per cent in 2009.^[1067]

Attacks on schools

During 2009-2012, there was evidence of three direct attacks on school buildings plus additional threats against schools.

In early December 2010, for example, gunmen set fire to a kindergarten in Ciudad Juárez on the northern border because teachers refused to pay extortion fees,^[1068] and in September 2011, threats of grenade attacks on schools in Santiago, in the north-eastern state of Nuevo León, caused panic among parents.^[1069]

Additionally, in July 2012, a kindergarten and a primary school were destroyed in Turicato, Michoacán state, by a Catholic sect called the Followers of the Virgin of the Rosary. Members used sledgehammers and pick-axes to destroy six classrooms, six bathrooms, furniture and computers and then burned down the buildings after a leader claimed she had received an order from the Virgin Mary to destroy them. The sect, whose rules prohibit formal schooling, refused to accept the secular government curriculum, especially on science and sexuality, or government uniforms, preferring robes and a headscarf.^[1070]

In 2009 and 2010, there were numerous gun battles in the vicinity of schools, in some cases resulting in the deaths of students, teachers or parents. In Reynosa, in 2009, 20 teachers reportedly struggled to keep up to a thousand students lying on the floor with their heads down while, for over two hours, grenades exploded and classroom walls were peppered with bullets around them.^[1071] On 30 August 2010, a shootout between gunmen and marines in Tampico, Tamaulipas state, as students were leaving school, left two children dead and two adults wounded.^[1072]

Attacks on school students, teachers and other education personnel

At least 14 school students,^[1073] 12 school teachers^[1074] and two education officials^[1075] were killed in attacks on education in 2009-2012. One teacher who was a leading teacher trade unionist was abducted and his whereabouts remain unknown.^[1076] Several school students were also abducted.^[1077]

The threat of violence related to criminal groups

Armed criminal groups in many cases demanded that teachers pay them a proportion of their salary or face kidnapping or other violence. But there were also killings of students and teachers by gunmen whose affiliation and motive were unexplained.

In Ciudad Juárez, in November 2010, there were both threats against individual teachers and threats posted on school walls warning that students would be kidnapped if teachers failed to hand over money to the perpetrators.^[1078] One vice-principal of a primary school said criminals 'wrote graffiti on the school's walls saying: "If you don't pay up a massacre will happen".'^[1079] In December 2010, the Chihuahua state senate called on the Governor and President to adopt a security plan to protect educational institutions in Ciudad Juárez from extortion.^[1080]

On 30 August 2011, at least 80 primary schools in Acapulco, in the south-western state of Guerrero, closed when up to 400 teachers went on strike in protest against threats of extortion and kidnapping.^[1081] One week later, it was reported that this figure had increased to 300 schools, affecting 30,000 students in the area.^[1082] The trigger for the strike was reportedly a blanket demand issued to primary schools ordering teachers to give up 50 per cent of their pay before 1 October and part of their Christmas bonus, or face the consequences. The threat was reportedly made by phone, leaflets dropped off at schools and banners posted outside them.^[1083] One teacher, who was a paymaster for teachers, received a letter requesting details of all teaching staff working in a specific area of the Acapulco education system who earned more than 8,000 pesos bi-weekly, and all of those earning more than 20,000 pesos. The letter also demanded the teachers' names, addresses and cell phone numbers, their voter registration cards and the names and addresses of their schools, plus the names of anyone who declined to divulge information.^[1084] According to the online newspaper Examiner.com, the threat was confirmed by an official in Guerrero's Department of Education for the region of Acapulco-Coyuca de Benítez, and it was believed that a violent criminal group known as La Barredora had sent the message.^[1085]

Acapulco officials argued that teachers were over-reacting.^[1086] However, the payroll officer at La Patria es Primero primary school, Acapulco, who was told to hand over information about teachers' salaries, fled the city.^[1087] Teachers demanded that military personnel be stationed outside schools.^[1088]

The threats were made amid a climate of pervasive violence. Three weeks earlier, gunmen reportedly broke into a school and snatched a student whose body was later found in La Sabana.^[1089] At the start of term, teachers in at least 75 Acapulco schools received threats, according to a CNN report.^[1090] In September 2011, police found a sack of five decomposed men's heads dumped outside a primary school in Acapulco along with threatening messages.^[1091] Also in September, it was reported that in a three-month period 43 teachers had been 'express kidnapped', meaning they were held for a limited period but released after a payment was made.^[1092]

In Acapulco, 12 schools reportedly did not reopen after the Christmas break due to the continuing demand that teachers hand over half their salaries and all of their bonuses. On 2 January 2012, the body of one murdered Acapulco teacher, Maria Viruel Andraca, 51, was left in the boot of a taxi on the Acapulco-Mexico highway with a note reportedly left by a criminal group,^[1093] sparking new protests by teachers on the need for security measures to be implemented.^[1094]

Elsewhere, gunmen attacked parents waiting for their children outside a Ciudad Juárez elementary school on 25 August 2011, wounding one man and four women.^[1095]

Police officers assigned to protect schools and students were also killed. On 24 February 2010, a police officer, PC Marco Antonio Olague, was shot dead in front of dozens of pupils as they were going into a primary school in Chihuahua city, although the reason was unclear.^[1096] Separately, on 12 September 2010, three police officers deployed to provide security at schools and campuses were shot dead while parked at a primary school in Ciudad Juárez while waiting for a colleague who had gone inside. Gunmen using AK-47 rifles sprayed the patrol vehicle with bullets. When crime investigators arrived, the gunmen reportedly returned and opened fire again.^[1097]

Two teachers who were trade union members were killed and one teacher who was a leading teacher trade unionist was abducted, and his whereabouts remain unknown. These incidents appeared to be linked to intra-trade union rivalries over the control of education in Oaxaca state as part of the wider struggle between those for and against more autonomy for the indigenous population.^[1098]

Attacks on higher education

Attacks on higher education included kidnappings and murder of students and academics by gunmen; bombings aimed at nanotechnology researchers and facilities; and violence by police or security forces against students.

Killings and kidnappings of students and staff

A compilation of media reports suggests that seven academics or university personnel were murdered,^[1099] four were injured^[1100] and six were threatened;^[1101] in addition, at least 15 higher education students were killed,^[1102] one was tortured and four were injured.^[1103] Some kidnappings ended in the victims being killed.^[1104] In some cases, it could not be verified whether the crime was linked to the victim's education role or place of education. According to the Justice in Mexico Project, the level of violence reportedly caused some professors at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where three professors were killed in a year, to leave their positions.^[1105]

At least seven higher education students were kidnapped.^[1106] In one incident on 5 March 2012, three technical school students and one high school student, aged between 13 and 21, were abducted from their schools by heavily armed men and killed in Cuernavaca, Morelos, in central Mexico. Their dismembered bodies were found in plastic bags together with a message from a drug cartel.^[1107]

Anti-nanotechnology bombings

In 2011, according to a compilation of media reports, six university campuses or research institutes were targeted with bombings and one researcher was separately assassinated in violence allegedly directed at staff involved in nanotechnology research.^[1108] A group called 'Individuals Tending towards the Wild' (ITS or 'Individuales tendiendo a lo salvaje' in Spanish) reportedly claimed responsibility for seven bombings and the assassination.^[1109]

For instance, on 8 August 2011, two professors at the Monterrey Institute of Technology were wounded when a package containing a tube of dynamite in a 20 centimetre-long pipe exploded. ITS, which was also linked to attacks against nanotechnology in France and Spain, claimed responsibility.^[1110] The group was reportedly motivated by a fear that development of nanotechnology could lead to nanoparticles reproducing uncontrollably and threatening life on Earth.^[1111]

According to Nature magazine, ITS also claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks against the head of engineering and nanotechnology at the Polytechnic University of the Valley of Mexico in Tultitlán in April and May 2011, the first of which wounded a security guard. In May 2011, ITS issued a general threat to professors and students warning them about any suspicious packages on campus: 'because one of these days we are going to make them pay for everything they want to do to the earth'.^[1112]

After the Monterrey bombing, the group reportedly listed five more researchers it was targeting at the Institute and six other universities.^[1113] The group also claimed responsibility for the killing of Ernesto Mendéz Salinas, a researcher at the Biotechnology Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in November 2011.^[1114]

Human rights violations by police and security forces

One university student was wounded when police fired warning shots at a student demonstration against violence and the militarization of responses to violence, in front of the Ciudad Juárez Autonomous University Institute for Biomedical Sciences on 29 October 2010.^[1115]

In another incident, on 12 December 2011, police fired live ammunition while dispersing around 300 or more student teachers blocking the motorway outside Chilpancingo. They were demanding better resources for rural education. The police killed two protesters and injured three others. One of the protesters was detained and tortured.^[1116]

On 19 March 2010, military personnel killed two students as they left the campus at Monterrey Institute for Technology, planted firearms on their bodies and falsely claimed they were 'hit men'.^[1117]

Attacks on education in 2013

At least six teachers were killed in 2013 for reasons that were never established. ^[1118] For example, on 10 September in Acapulco, it was reported that teacher José Omar Ramírez Castro had been shot and killed less than 10 metres from his school as he went to give his class, sparking a strike by 144 teachers over insecurity and disrupting the education of over 10,000 students.^[1119] Threats of kidnap and extortion against teachers also continued, with, for example, one school in the state of Morelos responding by moving teachers from one school to another to reduce the possible targeting of specific teachers.^[1120] Police were alleged to have used excessive force and illegally detained protesters when they used electric batons to disperse 300 teachers and students demonstrating against education reforms in Veracruz in September.^[1121] In higher education, attacks against nanotechnology researchers persisted.^[1122]

1061 Informe sobre la situación de derechos humanos en Jalisco, 2012, 109-112.

1062 International Crisis Group (ICG), Peña Nieto's Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico, Latin America Report no 48 (ICG, 19 March 2013); HRW, World Report 2012: Mexico (New York: HRW, 2012); Paris Martinez, "Mapping the presence of Mexican cartels in Central America," In Sight Crime: Organized Crime in the Americas, 2 July 2013; National Security Student Policy Group, The War on Mexican Cartels: Options for US and Mexican Policy-makers (Cambridge, MA: Institute of Politics – Harvard University, September 2012); and Brandon Darby, "Mexican officer: military at war with cartels in Nuevo Laredo," 9 March 2013, Breitbart.com.

1063 ICG, Peña Nieto's Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico, Latin American Report no 48 (ICG, 19 March 2013), ii.

1064 HRW, World Report 2013: Mexico (New York: HRW, 2013), 6-7, 14.

1065 Lauren Villagran, "Mexico tunes in to needs of drug war survivors," The Christian Science Monitor, 24 August 2012; ICG, Peña Nieto's Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico, Latin American Report no 48 (ICG, 19 March 2013); Francisco Reséndez, "Lista oficial de desaparecidos es de 26 mil 121: Segob," El Universal, 26 February 2013; and HRW, Mexico's disappeared: The enduring cost of a crisis ignored (New York: HRW, February 2013), 3.

1066 Elisabeth Malkin, "As Gangs Move In on Mexico's Schools, Teachers Say 'Enough'," New York Times, 25 September 2011.

1067 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), "Education (all levels) Profile – Mexico," UIS Statistics in Brief (2011).

1068 "Attackers set kindergarten ablaze in Mexican border city," CNN, 7 December 2010; and Cindy Casares, "Juárez Kindergarten Burned for Refusing to Pay Criminals," 6 December 2010.

1069 Agence France-Presse, "Fears of violence shake Mexico schools," Relief Web, 2 October 2011.

1070 "Religious Sect Destroys Schools in Mexican Town," Fox News Latino, 14 July 2012; Allison Jackson, "Mexico: Religious Sect Blocks Access to Schools," Global Post, 23 August 2012; Grace Protopapas, "Mexico: Religious Cult Blocks Children's Education," The Argentina Independent, 23 August 2012; Sofia Miselem, "Mexico Police Deployed After Sect Blocks Schools," AFP, 27 August 2012; and "Mexico sect says no to public education, burns the schools," Casa Grande Dispatch, 1 September 2012.

1071 Dudley Althaus, "In Sandy Hook's wake, Mexico ponders school safety," Global Post, 20 December 2012.

1072 "Bomb Wounds 2 in Northeast Mexico," Latin American Herald Tribune, 30 August 2010.

1073 "Four Students Kidnapped from School and Brutally Executed in Cuernavaca," Mexico Gulf Reporter, 9 March 2012; "4 students killed in suspected drug violence in Mexico," Press TV, 10 March 2012; Tracey Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez, "10 youths slain in Mexico," Los Angeles Times, 30 March 2010; Anahi Rama, "Hitmen kill 10 youths in Mexico's drug – hit north," Reuters, 29 March 2010; James McKinley Jr., "10 Mexican Students Killed in Another Violent Weekend," New York Times, 29 March 2010; "Student Shot Dead in Classroom," Herald Sun, 26 May 2011; Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011; and Lydia Warren, "Is nowhere safe in Mexico? Five bodies – including those of three high school students – found buried at UNIVERSITY," MailOnline, 16 December 2011.

1074 "Protests in Mexico after Oaxaca teacher killed," Seattle Times, 28 August 2009; "Latin America: Mexico Drug War Update," Stop the Drug War.org, 11 December 2009; "Three Teachers Killed in Mexico," Americas News, 19 September 2011; "Three people killed in an ambush in the Mexican state of Guerrero," Latin America Current Events, 20 September 2011; EFE, "Teacher, 2 others die in ambush in Guerrero," Borderland Beat, 20 September 2011; "Teacher is Executed in Acapulco," Borderland Beat, 3 January 2012; "4 Teachers in Mexico Executed Enroute to Funeral, Narcos Are Suspected," Latino Daily News, 17 December 2012; and Octavio Velez Ascencio, "Asesinan a maestro de la sección 22 en Oaxaca," La Jornada, 6 April 2011.

1075 "Three people killed in an ambush in the Mexican state of Guerrero," Latin America Current Events, 20 September 2011; and EFE, "Teacher, 2 others die in ambush in Guerrero," Borderland Beat, 20 September 2011.

1076 Interview with Yessica Sánchez (lawyer, former President of LIMEDDH-Oaxaca), 6 August 2013; and "Disappearance: Carlos René Román Salazar," Partners in Rights, 28 March 2011.

1077 Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011; "Four Students Kidnapped from School and Brutally Executed in Cuernavaca," Mexico Gulf Reporter, 9 March 2012; and "4 students killed in suspected drug violence in Mexico," Press TV, 10 March 2012.

1078 Edgar Roman, "Graffiti in Mexican border city threatens teachers, students," CNN, 26 November 2010.

1079 Chris Arsenault and Franc Contreras, "Mexico's drugs war goes to school," Al Jazeera, 2 September 2011.

1080 Dictamen de la Comisión de seguridad pública a la proposición con punto de acuerdo con relación a la extorsión que sufren las escuelas públicas en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.

1081 "Paran 400 maestros por inseguridad en Acapulco," El Universal, 30 August 2011; and Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011.

1082 Ezequiel Flores Contreras, "Paro de clases por inseguridad en Acapulco afecta a 30 mil estudiantes," Proceso, 5 September 2011.

1083 Elisabeth Malkin, "As Gangs Move In on Mexico's Schools, Teachers Say 'Enough'," New York Times, 25 September 2011; and "Paran 400 maestros por inseguridad en Acapulco," El Universal, 30 August 2011.

1084 Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011; and "Paran 400 maestros por inseguridad en Acapulco," El Universal, 30 August 2011. The threat was also confirmed by a former government official to Paulina Vega for this study, 30 July 2013.

1085 Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011.

1086 "Paran 400 maestros por inseguridad en Acapulco," El Universal, 30 August 2011; and interview with a former Government official of Guerrero, July 2013.

1087 Elisabeth Malkin, "As Gangs Move In on Mexico's Schools, Teachers Say 'Enough'," New York Times, 25 September 2011.

1088 Diario Acapulco, 12 September 2011.

1089 Dave Gibson, "Cartels now extorting teachers, killing schoolchildren in Mexico," Examiner, 31 August 2011.

1090 "La policía de Acapulco encuentra cinco cabezas humanas en una zona escolar," CNN, 28 September 2011.

1091 "Five severed heads left outside Mexican school," BBC News, 28 September 2011.

1092 Citlal Giles Sánchez, "Denuncian que al menos 43 maestros han sido secuestrados en Acapulco," La Jornada Guerrero, 14 September 2011.

1093 "Teacher is Executed in Acapulco," Borderland Beat, 3 January 2012; "Asesinan a profesora en Guerrero," La Jornada, 3 January, 2012, 8.

1094 Francisca Meza Carranza, "Asesinato de maestra, por omisión de pacto sobre seguridad, critican," La Jornada Guerrero, 12 January 2012.

1095 "140 Acapulco Schools Shut Down by Kidnapping and Extortion Threats," Fox News Latino, 30 August 2011.

1096 "Ejecutan a policía frente a escuela en Chihuahua," El Universal, 24 February 2010.

1097 Daniel Borunda, "3 Juárez officers ambushed slain outside school, police death toll now 64," El Paso Times, 12 September 2010.

1098 AP, "School's out in Oaxaca: Teachers on strike," The Guardian, 2 September 2009; Interview with Yessica Sánchez (lawyer, former President of LIMEDDH-Oaxaca), 6 August 2013; "Disappearance: Carlos René Román Salazar," Partners in Rights, 28 March 2011; Octavio Velez Ascencio, "Asesinan a maestro de la sección 22 en Oaxaca," La Jornada, 6 April 2011. "Protests in Mexico after Oaxaca teacher killed," Seattle Times, 28 August 2009.

1099 Mary Prince, "UNAM Professors Killed," Justice in Mexico Project, 16 November 2011; EFE, "Asesinado un investigador de Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico en Cuernavaca," ElMundo.es, 10 November 2011; Justice in Mexico, November 2011 Report, 4; "Bloody Day for Mexico Border City," Al Jazeera, 15 November 2009; City News Service, "Friends, Family Mourn San Diego Professor Killed In Tijuana," KPBS, 29 December 2010; and Ana Arana, "Anti-technology group behind university bombs," 15 August 2011.

1100 "Investigators Look for Motive in Mexican Bombing Case," Fox News, 9 August 2011; Steven Corneliussen, "Nanotechnologists are targets of Unabomber copycat," Physics Today, 24 August 2011; Leigh Phillips, "Nanotechnology: Armed Resistance," Nature, 29 August 2012; Emmanuel Rincón, "Carta bomba le estalla a maestro Hidalgo," Excelsior, 9 December 2011.

1101 Jonathan Travis, "MEXICO: Academic censored and threatened," University World News, 7 June 2009; and Leigh Phillips, "Nanotechnology: Armed Resistance," Nature, 29 August 2012.

1102 "Medical Student Killed in Mexican Border City," Fox News, 2 December 2009; "Students Killed in Shootout in Northern Mexico," Thaindian News, 21 March 2010; "2 College students murdered in Mexican border city," Fox News Latino, 29 December 2010; Blanka Hay, "Mexico: Student Shot Dead," The Argentina Independent, 28 October 2011; "Mexican police arrest alleged murder-kidnap gang in Nogales, Sonora," Nogales International, 16 August 2011; "In Mexico, Student Killed in Kidnapping Attempt near Adventist University," Adventist News, 31 May 2011; Romina Maurino, "Friends mourn 'brilliant' UBC student killed in Mexico," City News Toronto, 7 January 2012; Kristin Bricker, "Mexico: Federal Police Shoot Student in Ciudad Juarez During Forum Against Militarization and Violence," Huffington Post, 2 November 2010; Amnesty International, "Mexico urged to investigate student deaths in clash with police," 13 December 2011; and US Department of State, 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Mexico (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 24 May 2012).

1103 Tlachinollan, Summary of the final report issued by the National Commission on Human Rights on the investigation of gross violations of human rights in connection with the events of 12 December 2011 in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, March 2012; and "Federal Police Shoot Students during March against Violence in Juárez," Borderland Beat Press, 30 October 2010.

1104 "In Mexico, Student Killed in Kidnapping Attempt near Adventist University," Adventist News, 31 May 2011; and "Mexican police arrest alleged murder-kidnap gang in Nogales, Sonora," Nogales International, 16 August 2011.

1105 Mary Prince, "UNAM Professors Killed," Justice in Mexico Project, 16 November 2011.

1106 "Four Students Kidnapped from School and Brutally Executed in Cuernavaca," Mexico Gulf Reporter, 9 March 2012; "4 students killed in suspected drug violence in Mexico," Press TV, 10 March 2012; and "Four students kidnapped in northern Mexico," Thai Visa News, 13 October 2010.

1107 "Four Students Kidnapped from School and Brutally Executed in Cuernavaca," Mexico Gulf Reporter, 9 March 2012; and "4 students killed in suspected drug violence in Mexico," Press TV, 10 March 2012.

1108 Leigh Phillips, "Nanotechnology: Armed Resistance," Nature, 29 August 2012; Arturo Angel, "Van por 'ala terrorista' de anarquistas," 24 Horas, 26 February 2013; "Anti-Tech Extremists Linked to Letter Bombs Sent to Academics in Mexico," Fox News Latino, 10 August 2011; and "La bomba, 'reconocimiento' para le profesor Armando: PGJEM," El Universal, 9 August 2011.

1109 Leigh Phillips, "Nanotechnology: Armed Resistance," Nature, 29 August 2012; and Arturo Angel, "Van por 'ala terrorista' de anarquistas," 24 Horas, 26 February 2013.

1110 "Anti-Tech Extremists Linked to Letter Bombs Sent to Academics in Mexico," Fox News Latino, 10 August 2011; "La bomba, 'reconocimiento' para le profesor Armando: PGJEM," El Universal, 9 August 2011; and Arturo Angel, "Van por 'ala terrorista' de anarquistas," 24 Horas, 26 February 2013.

1111 "'Individuals Tending To Savagery' anti-technology group sent bomb to Monterrey Technological Institute professors," Huffington Post, 8 October 2011; and Geoffrey Ingersoll, "Mexican anarchists are blowing up scientists and the Government is freaked," Business Insider, 8 March 2013.

1112 Leigh Phillips, "Nanotechnology: Armed Resistance," Nature, 29 August 2012.

1113 Ibid.

1114 Geoffrey Ingersoll, "Mexican anarchists are blowing up scientists and the Government is freaked," Business Insider, 8 March 2013.

1115 "Federal Police Shoot Students during March against Violence in Juárez," Borderland Beat Press, 30 October 2010.

1116 National Commission of Human Rights Mexico, paras 12 and 13, and for graphic evidence, including maps of the place and pictures of public security cameras, see the annex of the same report; Informe XVIII, June 2011-May 2012, Desde el grito más hondo y digno, Tlachinollan Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, June 2012, 44; Informe XIX, June 2012 – May 2013, Digna Rebeldía "Guerrero, el epicentro de las luchas de la resistencia," Tlachinollan Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, June 2013, 70-72; and US Department of State, 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Mexico (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 24 May 2012).

1117 HRW, Neither rights nor security (New York: HRW, 9 November 2011).

1118 "El asesinato de un maestro dejan sin clases a alumnos," Zócalo Saltillo, 10 September 2013; Sección 22, "Sección 22 condena el artero asesinato del profesor Everardo Hugo Hernández," 11 September 2013; Norma Trujillo Báez, "Debe aclararse desaparición y muerte de profesor: CNTE," La Jornada Veracruz, 30 September 2013; Pedro Tonantzin, "Maestros en Morelos sufren secuestros y extorsiones," Excelsior, 30 May 2013; and Isaín Mandujano, "Hallan muerto segundo maestro parista en Chiapas," Chiapas Paralelo, 13 October 2013.

1119 "El asesinato de un maestro dejan sin clases a alumnos," 10 September 2013.

1120 A leader of the Teachers Union SENTE at Morelos acknowledged the existence of four cases of threats and extortions. See Pedro Tonantzin, "Maestros en Morelos sufren secuestros y extorsiones," Excelsior, 30 May 2013; and Pedro Tonantzin, "En Morelos capacitarán a maestros ante llamadas de extorsión telefónica," Excelsior, 12 July 2013.

1121 "Sin aparecer 16 docentes tras desalojo en Xalapa," 16 September 2013; and Noé Zavaleta, "Desalojan de madrugada a maestros y estudiantes de la plaza Lerdo de Xalapa," Proceso, 14 September 2013.

1122 Pedro Tonantzin, "Envían 'sobre-bomba' a investigador de la UNAM en Morelos'," Excelsior, 11 February 2013.