East Timor: Twenty people arrested in student protest outside Parliament

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

East Timor: Twenty people arrested in student protest outside Parliament

10:12 CAT | 09 Nov 2018

Approximately 20 young people on Friday were arrested after the police used rubber bullets and tear-gas to disperse students who protested outside the East Timorese National Parliament.

Police intervention occurred after many days of the protest organised by the East Timor University Movement which protests, as it did in the past, against the purchase of vehicles for the parliamentarians.

The students question the fact that the vehicles used by the parliamentarians are auctioned, at a much lower price than the market, when the members finish the mandate.

Around 34 former members, who have finished their parliamentary term this year, will be able to buy the vehicles they used.

Adrovaldo, one of the students, explained to Lusa that the protest was to claim “social justice”, disputing the use of public funds to buy new cars, when “there are no many problems in the country.”

Cândido Araújo Silva, a third-year International Relations student, insisted that young people have the police’s permission to protest and questions the “very strong” intervention of the police.

“We have the right to protest. The police have authorised the protest. We have spoken with the parliament, but we still do not have a result,” Silva said.

“East Timor has many problems. Lack of basic infrastructures, roads, health and education that affect the people,” Silva said. “The parliament represents the people, but it seems that it is not worried about the people, but only with they own interests.”

Source: Lusa