MY COLLEAGUE AND co-researcher, Mexican intellectual and trade union activist Edur Velasco Arregui, has been expelled for political reasons from the SNI (National System of Researchers) in Mexico. This expulsion has many severe consequences for Edur (financial, job security, and health coverage) and is part of the effort of the Mexican government to intimidate those who oppose by actions as well as words its authoritarian, repressive and neoliberal path. [1]

Edur’s history of opposition to the regime, his academic record, and circumstances surrounding the case are presented in the statement “Political Retaliation against a Mexican Intellectual: The Case of Dr. Edur Velasco Arregui,” which begins:

Edur Velasco Arregui, a distinguished Mexican academic (Professor of Labor Economics and of Labor Law at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana — UAM) and trade union activist, has been purged from his position in the National System of Researchers (SNI). This purge is part of a broader repression by the Mexican regime, a repression that ranges from attempts to purge left academics and left programs at universities to imprisonment, disappearances and violence against journalists, environmentalists, indigenous activists, and trade unionists. Edur, at various times, has suffered most of these forms of repression, disappeared by the military for 21 days in 1978, being shot in 1982 while on a picket line, and now purged from SNI. This reprisal against Professor Velasco Arregui is taking place during a period in which Dr. Velasco Arregui’s health is frail as he is still recovering from the effects of a six week hunger strike during the fall of 2011 in front of the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (Mexican Stock Exchange) to protest major cuts in governmental support for public universities, a hunger strike supported by his union (SITUAM — (Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana — Independent Union of Workers of the Metropolitan Autonomous University) and the “Ocupa la Bolsa” movement, a movement stimulated by and in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Signers of the support letter include José Raúl Vera López (Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico), Noam Chomsky (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dan La Botz (editor, Mexican Labor News and Analysis), Porfirio Muñoz Ledo (Mexico’s Secretary of Labor from 1972-1975 and Mexico’s UN Ambassador 1978-1985), Leo Panitch (Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science, York University), Alejandro Encinas (Mexican Senator), Stephanie Ross (President, Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies), Enrique C. Ochoa (Professor of History and Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles), Sam Gindin (former chief economist and assistant to the President of the Canadian Auto Workers), Jeffery R. Webber (Senior Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London), Greg Albo (Professor, Political Science, York University, co-editor, Socialist Register), Sue Ferguson (Coordinator, Journalism Program, Wilfred Laurier University), Teresa Healy (Adjunct Research Professor. Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University), and David McNally (Professor, Political Science, York University).

To sign the open letter, email droman rogers.com, providing your institutional affiliation, profession or other identification. We will indicate that institutions are for identification purposes only. We will present the letter to:

Dra. Julia Tagüeña Parga [Directora Adjunta de Desarrollo Científico, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Deputy Director of Scientific Development, National Council for Science and Technology)]

José Antonio Meade Kuribreña, Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores de Mexico [Mexican Foreign Minister]

Richard Roman