Mexico City. A group of workers from the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal) protested this afternoon during the ceremony to award the 2023 and 2024 Fine Arts Medals in the fields of Architecture and Heritage.
At the start of the official ceremony in the Manuel M. Ponce hall, approximately 15 people displayed paper signs with messages calling for dialogue and not repression against cultural workers.
“At Inbal there is always freedom of expression, even if not everyone is right,” were the words of Héctor Romero, deputy director of Fine Arts and who served as presenter, after the first medal was awarded to Enrique Ortiz, for the year 2023 in the field of architecture.
For the rest of the ceremony, which lasted almost two hours, several of the protesters remained standing and holding up signs with slogans. In one of the most emotional moments, when the four award winners, Enrique Ortiz, Sara Topelson, Gabriel Mérigo and Salvador Aceves, stood together for the photo opportunity, the protesters stood in front of them, to the annoyance of the honorees’ friends and family.
After the ceremony at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, members of the National Union of Cultural Workers explained that they are demanding compliance with labor benefits, such as the delivery of work clothes and tools, which they have been doing since 2018.
Dario Montiel, director of Labor Affairs at INBAL, responded that a meeting was held at 1:00 p.m. to review this issue, but that the workers did not attend. He also pointed out that the protest during the ceremony at the Palacio de Bellas Artes is related to the ruling that reinstated two people in the coordination of Visual Arts, which the rest of the employees did not agree with, arguing that it would affect their promotion.
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– 2024-09-26 12:03:19
