by DAVID HOLMES MORRIS
Eight injured, several jailed amid charges students were armed
Tear gas filled the air and classes were suspended at universities in San Francisco de Macorís and Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, during student protests on Thursday and Friday, March 11 and 12, primarily over physical conditions at the medical and engineering schools in San Francisco de Macorís, in the northeast of the country.
The Frente Estudiantil de Liberación Amin Abel (FELABEL — Amin Abel Student Liberation Front) was expelled from the campus of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD — Autonomous University of Santo Domingo) on Friday after federal authorities and university administrators announced they had discovered a cache of arms, including machine guns, rifles and hand grenades, in a basement room on the UASD campus used by the student group. Members of FELABEL, denying any responsibility for the weapons, said they had been planted by authorities to discredit the group and to distract attention from the aims of their protests.
In connection with the weapons, agents of the National Police arrested three student activists and the head of the UASD employees’ association, Ángel Osiris Torres, in a hospital waiting room where they had gone to visit Engel Rodríguez, who had been shot, reportedly by the National Police, during a demonstration at UASD on Thursday. Rodríguez was not himself involved in the demonstrations.
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