5/30/2016

Chile: Clashes Erupt In Students Protest


26 May, Santiago: Police cracked down on students protesters causing escalation that led to more than a hundred students arrested and several policemen injured.  Police used tear gas and water cannons to divert the march.

“The repression maneuvers were excessive,” Marcelo Correa, a spokesman for the Coordinadora Nacional de Estudiantes Secundarios, told Elm Strador. “We are high school students who just want to fight to improve education peacefully, but police [Thursday] were the ones who took up arms.”

Protesters were demanding the President Bachelet to speed up efforts to make university education free. The head of state had promised Chile free university education before being elected in 2014. Currently families in the country pay a massive 75 percent of the university cost themselves.

“We the students have adopted a position of offense,” Reuters quoted Marta Matamala, who leads the student union at the University of Santiago, as saying. “We are going to stay on the streets. From today onward, we expect that the protests will only intensify.”

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