Oaxaca: women seize TV station

From the Spanish news service EFE via Chiapas95, Aug. 1 (our translation):

Women of the Popular Assembly of the State of Oaxaca (APPO) today took by force the installations of the [state-owned] Oaxacan Television and Radio Corporation, which operates one television channel and two radio stations, detaining for several hours some 80 workers.

The government of Oaxaca ordered an immediate shut-down of Channel 9 television and the two radio stations, but the protesters were nonetheless able to continue broadcasting on other frequencies, through which they transmitted communiques demanidng the resignation of the state’s governor, Ulises Ruiz.

Hours later, the protesters liberated the workers, the women first, but maintained control of the installations.

The women had participated earlier today in a march with kitchen pans [for banging] on the site where direct negotiations are being held between leaders of the teachers and the [federal] Government secretariat.

The conflict began May 22 with a petition to raise the salaries of the 70,000 teachers of the Oaxaca section of the National Syndicate of Education Workers (SNTE).

The Oaxaca rebellion is also spreading to rural areas. La Jornada reported Aug. 1 that in the Zapotec village of Villa de Zaachila is the latest of dozens of rural municipalities where indigenous councils have seized power and booted out party officials.

See our last posts on Mexico and the Oaxaca crisis.