#Mexican #schoolboy #set #fire #indigenous
A Mexican schoolboy was set on fire and badly burned in a classroom – his “only crime” was speaking an indigenous language in a country struggling to end racial discrimination.
Two classmates are accused of pouring alcohol on the seat of Juan Zamorano at a high school in central Queretaro state in June.
When the 14-year-old realized his pants were wet and got up, one of them set Zamorano on fire, according to his family.
He suffered second and third degree burns and was discharged from hospital just this week.
Juan had already suffered weeks of bullying because of his indigenous Otomi roots, according to his family’s lawyers, who filed complaints against the alleged attackers and the school board.
With an estimated population of 350,000, the Otomi are one of dozens of indigenous groups in the Latin American country.
The Otomi language is Juan’s first language, “but he doesn’t like to speak it because it’s a source of ridicule, harassment and bullying,” Ernesto Franco, one of the family’s lawyers, told AFP.
The family has claimed to the media that even Zamorano’s teacher has been harassing him because of his origins.
“She thinks we’re not her class, we’re not her race,” Zamorano’s father, who described the attack as “attempted murder,” told El Universal newspaper.
– ‘Recurring Attacks’ –
Queretaro prosecutors have announced an investigation into the attack and the alleged perpetrators are facing possible trials.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the country’s attorney general’s office could handle the case if necessary.
Juan’s “only crime was speaking Otomi,” tweeted Lopez Obrador’s spokesman Jesus Ramirez, who said eradicating racism is everyone’s responsibility.
Mexico’s National Institute for Indigenous Peoples called on authorities to “sanction minors and adults involved in harassment and recurring attacks on minors.”
Urgent measures are needed in schools to prevent further cases of discrimination and racism, it said.
Discrimination is rampant in Mexico, a country of 126 million where 23.2 million people identify themselves as indigenous and more than 7.3 million speak an indigenous language, according to a 2020 census.
In one case in March, an Otomi woman accused staff at a restaurant in a trendy Mexico City neighborhood of preventing her from using the restroom, telling her it was for customers only.
– Systemic racism –
Around 40 percent of the indigenous population complained of discrimination in a survey published in 2018 by the national statistics office.
Almost half felt little or no respect for their rights.
The survey also revealed prejudices against indigenous people.
Three out of ten respondents agreed with the statement: “Indigenous people’s poverty is due to their culture.”
Cases like Zamorano’s are not isolated cases, but part of systemic racism, said Alexandra Haas, the Mexican head of the international charity Oxfam.
In 2019, an Oxfam study in Mexico found that speaking an indigenous language, identifying with an indigenous, black or mixed ethnicity community, or having darker skin color meant lower opportunities for educational and professional advancement.
Mexico has a law to prevent discrimination and has created institutions responsible for handling complaints.
Still, Zamorano’s case is a clear example of “how far discrimination can go,” according to Haas, a former president of the country’s National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination.
“We cannot say that it was impossible to predict this. There have been centuries of racial, indigenous and very structural discrimination,” she said.
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