Colombia: Student Mobilizations Against Abelardo in Medellín
Featured image: Demonstration in Medellín against the attacks on universities by Abelardo. Source: Nueva Democracia
On September 13, an announcement by Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella introduced a national protocol allowing police to enter universities and intervene against those who promote “violent acts,” emphasizing that “university autonomy is not above public order.” This announcement has been met with outrage by students, activists and university staff, who organized a demonstration on September 23 for the right to protest and for university autonomy.
The demonstration, as reported by Nueva Democracia (ND), started from the University of Antioquia (UdeA) and marched through the Technological Institute of Antioquia (TdeA), the Metropolitan Technological Institute (ITM) and the UdeA Robledo campus.
ND reports that the protocol has been met with widespread condemnation within the universities, including the aforementioned demonstration. Concern has been raised within academic circles, such as faculties within UdeA and the student paper, who dedicated their latest issue to the topics of university autonomy and student protest, discussing among other things the so-called Anti-Mask Law and the aforementioned presidential announcements.
Attacks on universities is not a new development in Colombia, ND reports: “the relationship between the police and universities has for decades been marked by episodes of political violence, armed confrontation, and the stigmatization of the student movement.” Between 1962 and 2011, 588 students were murdered, according to statistics cited by the Truth Commission.
We share below several posts from the Instagram account of ND, which documents the demonstration:
