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Teachers, bikers, sect members throng capital

The Herald, Mexico
May 16, 2005
www2.eluniversal.com.mx

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday May 16, 2005

Teachers, members of a local religious sect and motorcyclists thronged Mexico City streets on Sunday in three separate protests.

Hundreds of teachers took to the streets in the early morning to demand salary increases as the National Union of Educational Workers reached the annual deadline for negotiating salary increases with the government.

The deadline coincides with Dia del Maestro, or Teacher’s Day, celebrated here each year on May 15.

The marching teachers were rewarded later in the afternoon when union leadership and the Education Secretariat announced a 7 percent global pay increase for more than 1 million teachers nationwide.

Meanwhile, an estimated 5,000 motorcycles drove en masse to the Monument of the Revolution, in a protest responding to the death of television actor Edgar Ponce who was run over earlier this month while riding a motorcycle in Mexico City.

In the afternoon, about 200 members of a religious group devoted to the worship of the Santa Muerte, or “Saint Death,” walked to the presidential residence to demand the government reinstate its registration, allowing the sect to raise money and own property.

In the southern suburban neighborhood of Coyoacan, musicians from the local symphonic orchestra staged a slightly more subdued march on Sunday when they demonstrated in favor of a new acoustic half-shell planned for the Frida Kahlo Garden.

Last week, a group of local residents had protested against the construction. The Coyoacan symphony has presented 24 concerts in the park area since 2002.