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<h2><font size=3><b>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maritza-stanchich-phd">Maritza
Stanchich,
Ph.D.</a></b></font></h2><font size=3><b>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maritza-stanchich-phd/violence-against-student-_b_817297.html?view=screen" eudora="autourl">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maritza-stanchich-phd/violence-against-student-_b_817297.html?view=screen<br>
<br>
</a></b>Associate Professor of English, University of Puerto Rico<br>
Posted: February 2, 2011 04:31 PM <br><br>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maritza-stanchich-phd/violence-against-student-_b_817297.html">
Violence Against Student Strike in Puerto Rico Escalates With Police
Brutality and Rubber Bullets</a> <br><br>
</b></font></h1><font size=3>More than 150 students practicing civil
disobedience have been arrested in Puerto Rico and riot police on
Thursday escalated violent repression of a university strike with
<a href="http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2011/01/47242.php">brutal
arrests</a> and rubber bullets during a sit-in demonstration at the
Capitol. As President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called
for governmental prudence during a historic revolt in Egypt, the most
basic free speech rights are under attack with apparent impunity in this
U.S. territory of about four million U.S. citizens still grappling with a
century-old colonial relationship with the United States.<br><br>
Meanwhile, the Reaganite Republican and pro Statehood Governor, Luis
Fortuño, was again traveling on Friday,
<a href="http://www.vocero.com/noticias-es/gobernador-viaja-a-simi-valley-california">
with a trip to California sponsored by The Heritage Foundation</a>,
though he denied attending a controversial event nearby with the
billionaire Koch brothers behind the Tea Party movement. Fortuño's bold
austerity measures and ruthlessness have made him a Republican Party
darling, as strategists scramble for Latino leaders they can promote
while rejecting immigration reform and with Tea Party followers spewing
hate speech against Latino immigrants. <br><br>
The student strike that began in December against an imposed fee and the
privatization of the institution has demonstrated the lengths to which
the Fortuño administration will go to repress all dissent. The governor
has
<a href="http://laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14092&ArticleId=336085">
laid off</a> 20,000 public sector employees, nullified public sector
union contracts, and gutted the budgets of cultural, educational and
social agencies, including the University of Puerto Rico. Early in his
term, he activated the National Guard for civilian purposes, to the
public outcry of civil and human rights groups.<br><br>
Adding to the climate of a university under siege, the administration
announced 10 academic programs at the flagship Río Piedras campus have
been placed "on pause" and would turn away new undergraduate
majors, including the internationally renowned department of Hispanic
Studies. That professors learned of this through the press, and using
terminology that appears nowhere in university regulations, heightened
fears that the university--a cornerstone of Puerto Rico's national
patrimony--is being dismantled. <br><br>
"The thought is unbearable," said Princeton University
professor Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, an alumni of the Hispanic Studies
program, who recalled his intellectual mentors there with reverent
indebtedness. The department in turn announced it would fight the
potential suspension, which echoes a broader attack on the humanities
seen at public universities elsewhere, as crude market forces seem to
suddenly determine what counts as knowledge.<br><br>
With the next semester set to begin Monday, student protesters seem to be
putting their lives on the line for public higher education, as growing
contingents of riot police suppress even relatively small protests of 100
or so students. A journalist from Al Jazeera plans a trip to Puerto Rico
to cover the unrest, largely ignored by most U.S. media.<br><br>
Police have also dealt harshly with journalists during civil disobedience
arrests, with several journalists attacked, and one correspondent of
student-run RadioHuelga arrested, despite his clearly displayed press
credentials. Press organizations filed complaints and assault charges
against the police Monday on behalf of journalists violently blocked from
newsgathering.<br><br>
Indeed photographs and videos of Thursday's police escalation are
<a href="http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2011/01/47174.php">damning</a>.
Along with firing
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77xibyogluY">rubber bullets</a>
and using tear gas and pepper spray, police are seen
<a href="http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2011/01/47242.php">applying
pressure point techniques </a>to the neck to block blood flow of student
civil disobedients, which induces extreme pain and can be potentially
fatal if misapplied, according to medical experts cited in the local
press. Police are also seen in videos groping the breasts of a female
student under arrest, prompting local human rights groups to publicly
denounce such sexual misconduct and women's rights groups to hold a
protest today.<br><br>
Thursday's events brought to bear broad criticism from political leaders
and the public alike, with concerns that further escalation may cause
deaths. This independent
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77xibyogluY">video</a> shows
police abusing students under arrest and firing potentially fatal rubber
bullets as protesters then took to the streets, as well as reactions from
the public affected by the mayhem. When the arrests began, the students
were sitting on the ground, arms-locked, in civil disobedience, as they
have been for the past two weeks at entrances to the main university
campus. The subtitled interview with a student being arrested was filmed
from under a car, which the cameraman resorted to when police blocked his
filming. <br><br>
Expressions by a nun and teacher from a nearby parochial school echo
widespread erosion of public confidence in the police, who in the past
few years have been rocked by scandal, from killings attributed to police
brutality or botched responses, to the biggest FBI police corruption
sting in history with the arrest of more than 130 in October. Recent
headlines indicate the new year began with the highest murder rate in a
decade, with 111 murders in January, per capita a higher rate than
Mexico.<br><br>
And with the campus occupied by police breaking a more than 30-year
truce, the nerves of members of the university community are as frayed as
one could expect should a similar scenario unfold at Kent State
University. <br><br>
"Police chief José Figueroa Sancha and Governor Luis Fortuño are
totally directly responsible for whatever happens," said Elizabeth
Concepción Laguere, a sister at the Convento Jesús Mediador, who was
arrested on January 19 in solidarity civil disobedience, and wished aloud
that "the public would overcome their fear and come out in support
of the students." <br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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