CHILE – Thousands of high school students demonstrated Thursday in downtown Santiago de Chile to demand better conditions and more funds for Education, in the third day of protests that ended with the harsh intervention of riot forces of the Carabineros corps.
Shouting “a decent education” and “there is money for the pakos (policemen) but not for education”, thousands young people advanced from Heroes station towards La Moneda Palace with the intention of reaching the Ministry of Education, which they could not reach due to the police presence. They then returned to La Alameda in the direction of Plaza Italia, the main scene of the protests that in 2019 unleashed the violent “social outburst”, where the first clashes took place between students armed with stones and riot police aboard armored vehicles spitting pressurized water and pepper spray.
“We are here so that it is not forgotten that the struggle is not over. We students are not going to leave the streets until our demands are heard,” Marcela, a 16-year-old girl studying at one of the high schools in the Lastarria neighborhood in the center of the capital.
Marcela, who carried a large feminist banner, had come with her classmates despite the rain and bad weather that characterized the day of protest, called by the Coordinadora de Secundaria Revolucionaria (CSR) and other anti-capitalist and leftist student organizations.
The high school students demand “minimum conditions to study”, better access to internet, better infrastructure, free transportation, paid and insured internships and tools, universal access to university, integral sexual education and the repeal of the “safe classroom law”.
THIRD DAY OF PROTESTS
Yesterday (08) was the third consecutive day of student protests, since Tuesday groups of young people marched through the center of the city to demand the convening of a constituent assembly to give continuity to the process after the victory of the rejection in last Sunday’s constitutional plebiscite.
On Wednesday, the mobilization was a call to occupy subway stations and forced to close some of them and interrupt the regular flow of trains in the center of the capital, as happened on October 18, 2019, on a day that marked the beginning of the social outburst, the most multitudinous protest of Chilean democracy.
In different stations, high school students were seen sitting on the edge of the platform, jumping turnstiles and demonstrating inside the stations. Earlier in the morning, there were protests and intervention by Chilean carabineros near the Instituto Nacional and the Liceo de Aplicación, two of the most prestigious high schools in the capital.
Following the altercations, the new Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, and senior Carabineros commanders met in La Moneda to coordinate preventive actions. According to the government, during the last two days of demonstrations, 42 people were arrested and 6 complaints were filed for disturbing public order and acts of violence.
