Keisha McNeil
November 5, 2010
1:45pm
On the streets of Dublin, in London almost 25,000 students protested against the increase in college registration fee. The protest by the students was a peaceful march on the students part. The students marched with t-shirts on saying "Education, not emigration" referring to a recent surge of young people leaving Ireland because of its high rate of unemployment opportunities. The students were not expecting to be confronted by the rioting of the police who were riding on horseback and coming on foot towards them. Police claimed that the protest got out of hand when about 2000 students gathered around the Department of Finance and started throwing bricks, eggs and other objects at the department. About twenty students who ran into the lobby to get away from the police were wrestled back out by some of the department members. The students were brutally attacked by policemen with batons repeatedly. On young woman was dragged by her feet, unable to defend herself.
From this article I felt that students sh0uld be able to express their freedom of speech without being brutally attacked in the process by government officials. Students should be able to state their opinion on how much money they spend when it comes to their education. I do believe that the students that threw the bricks and eggs at the Department of Finance should have been reprimanded for their actions but not the students that were protesting peacefully. This is a prime example of how government officials(policemen) misuse their authority and become overly aggressive to citizens(students).
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/1105/1224282726320.html
5 comments:
Unfortunately, students are usually among the first groups of people that are targeted either for tuition increase or budget cut. Example like what is happened in London. Students have less income or no income compared to other members of the society and also their voice will not hear by people who made decision about them.
I can understand why these college students reacted to the increase in college fees in a harmless way. As a current college student I know how hard it is financially to be in college, and with increases in cost that will only make it harder. These students only wanted to express themselves about how they felt about this situation, and they were attacked for that. They did not try to cause harm to anyone, so why did the police cause harm to them?
That does seem like a misuse of authority to just attack all students whether or not they were causing any harm. They should be able to protest peacefully without fearing attack from the police.
Rasing the cost of college will decrease the number of students in college, which makes the society overall less educated. It would be better to not increase tuition for everyone.
I agree with Jordan, paying for college on my own has really shown me a side of money and the economy I never had to worry about. Financially, paying for college is a huge burden, therefore raising costs just make it alot harder, and I understand where these students were coming from. I do not understand why there had to be violence come out of the situation when they just wanted to let their voices be heard!
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