Protesters and police clashed in the streets of Valencia, Monday, Feb. 20. AFP / Toni Gutierrez

In this video, you see, the minute 1 ’00, five police officers hit a student, then racing demonstrators in the streets of Valencia.



Several hundred young people, responding to appeals on social networks, gathered outside the institute Lluis Vives , a college town, for protest against the liquidity problems that have private heating recent weeks several area schools, government Regional who have not paid the bills from suppliers.

REGION OF SPAIN most indebted

The first clashes erupted in the afternoon between protesters and police officers who protected places. Then the clashes have spread to surrounding streets, making use of police batons, some demonstrators being dragged to the ground or plated. The daily El Pais , the police used rubber bullets. Pictures showed protesters blood on his face. The clashes continued a part of the evening in the downtown streets of Valencia, which had positioned dozens of police vans.

In Valencia, a demonstration against cuts in education budgets have resulted in clashes between demonstrators and security forces. AP / Alberto Saiz

The regional police chief, Antonio Moreno , said that police had used a ” physical force proportionate “. “An increased aggression requires a proportionate response” , he said on national radio. A spokesman for the police explained that the police had intervened because demonstrators “had an aggressive attitude” . “There have been arrests, we do not yet know how” , he said while the media totaled the number of people arrested between 14 and 21.

Frequent events are held in Valencia in recent weeks, the most indebted region of Spain, where authorities announced in early January an austerity plan that includes tax increases and spending cuts in health and the education sector amounting to over one billion euros. Incidents have already opposed police and young protesters last week in the city.

Monday, the Socialist opposition has asked the Interior Minister, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, and the police chief of s account to Parliament on what it called ” brutal repression “ of these events.