The 65-year-old received fatal head injuries during operation launched after demonstrators drove bus through police line blocking access to city’s airport

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

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A 65-year-old man has died after receiving head injuries during a violent police operation to break up a demonstration of radical teachers in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco. At least 12 others were also hospitalized, including another retired teacher with head wounds.



The operation on Tuesday evening was launched after a bus was driven into hundreds of federal police officers blocking the protesters trying to access the city’s airport. The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying that seven officers were injured by the bus.

The demonstration was called to pressure the government over a wage dispute, as well as to demand justice for 43 student-teachers who disappeared in the city of Iguala in September after being attacked by municipal police in league with a local drug cartel.

Both Iguala and Acapulco are in the state of Guerrero which has descended into crisis since the students went missing, in part because of continual protests by teachers which the business community blames for destroying the tourism-based economy.

Police used truncheons and teargas to disperse Tuesday’s demonstrators who included a mask-wearing minority that was throwing large sticks and stones at the officers. There was also a large contingent of unarmed women and retirees.

As well as beating the retreating protesters, the officers reportedly smashed the windows of several vehicles and set fire to one.

Juan Angulo, director of the respected local newspaper El Sur, said retired teacher Claudio Castillo, who died in hospital early on Wednesday, was singled out by police as he sat in a truck from where he had been chanting slogans through a microphone.

“The police pulled him out and hit him, before letting him go. Then he was beaten up again by other officers,” Angulo told Radio Fórmula.

The newspaper director added that one of El Sur’s photographers was also beaten by police and his camera was smashed. “The police acted with a lot of violence, but there are not many images of what happened,” Angulo said.

Photographs of the incident were widely shared on social media – including an image of a man covered in blood being marched away by police and another of dozens of detainees lying facedown in the road.

The authorities reported that 106 people were arrested during the operation, of whom 99 were released on Wednesday morning.

#ContraElSilencioMx (@ContraSilencio) In #Acapulco teachers are being massively repressed by federal police, 106 arrested. @AJStream pic.twitter.com/N5Qbshf8E6

The teachers protest was originally organized to coincide with negotiations between union leaders and a representative of the federal government over the suspension of wage payments within an administrative reorganization.

It developed into a six-hour blockade of a main road leading to the city’s airport when the meeting was cancelled. Tensions spiralled out of control when the bus was driven into hundreds of federal police cutting off the route to the airport.

The Interior Ministry statement said the Federal Police had “prioritized dialogue” in an effort to find a peaceful resolution of the blockade until they were attacked by the bus and flying objects. “As a result of this the Federal Police proceeded to remove the blockade,” the statement said.

Radical teachers from Guerrero have participated in numerous protests over the past five months that have combined sectoral demands with fury over the disappearance of the student teachers in Iguala in September. Some of the protests have ended in violence, including the burning of government buildings, and triggered clashes with police.