Chiapas school leaders turn away evangelical kids

MEXICO CITY — Government school teachers would be glad to enroll the approximately 100 evangelical children who want to study in Miziton, a town in the municipality of San Cristobal de las Casas, in Mexico’s southernmost state of Chiapas. But local leaders have refused to allow them to register in the local primary school.

Last January, several evangelical families were violently expelled from Miziton and their homes were burned. They later returned and have been eking out a precarious existence while facing hostility from local tradition Catholics.

Now the problem has focused on the school issue. According to Mexican law, all children should be provided with a primary school education at minimum. In some states, an exception has been made for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have not been admitted due to their refusal to salute the Mexican flag or sing the national anthem. However, evangelical children do not have that problem. But Tzotzil Indian leaders are determined to rid their town of evangelicals.