"International Student Movement"

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• There have been reports that the Bayamón campus administration has been sending discouraging emails to its students stating that there will be class tomorrow, disregarding any strike, and an increased police presence has been noted around the area, an open intimidation ploy.

• According to the governor, education is a privilege, not a right. Lovely.

• Recount of the first 48hrs of protest:

• The Medical Sciences Campus (RCM in Spanish) has voted against joining their strike. Their main argument was a concern that the medical services they provide might be jeopardized, a valid point. However, such an act was in itself not a dismissal of their fellows, and individual RCM students who feel solidarity with the strike have stated that they will go and make a stand with their UPR brothers and sisters. This, I believe, is the meaning of a mature democracy.

• Most campuses are on strike, lockout, or are having their assemblies. Still waiting on others to get their act together.

• Collective of students getting ready to fight for our rights and our education in the usually passive ad reactionary University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.

• Students have taken the gates of the Carolina campus.

• So ends the third day of the strike. As the media often portrays them, the students covered up their faces on Sunday and then went on to paint sidewalks and curbs, clean the grounds and enjoy a nice afternoon of what they termed Red Sunday. The media back home is baffled. The UPR students have successfully chipped a way at prevailing student stereotypes with their actions these past few days. This has strengthened them in the eyes of the country, and continues to fuel the hope of kindling the fires of resistance. With each passing day support continues to grow from all sectors and walks of life. [video]
  

• This video captures an attempted entry by students armed with a legal decision allowing them entry into campus.
  The police barred their entrance, utilized force against one of them and threw him to the ground, and later refused to identify who was their commanding officer.

• Professors unite with students in front of the UPR gates.
  

• Limited compilation of photographs (re)presenting the student strike. More images will be added as the strike continues.

• Police gives traffic tickets to drivers who hunk their horns as a show of solidarity with the students in strike.
  Honking a car's horn in Puerto Rico, depending on the context, is usually a way to display one's approval with something.

• Calle 13 also expresses solidarity with the UPR students. A concert in support of the strike and the sudent's fight is being organized for tuesday, April 27.

• Ricky Martin, Tego Calderón and Robi "Draco" Rosa - all of them Puerto Rican music artists - expressed today their solidarity with the students. Calderón and Rosa visited some of the students at the UPR gates. While time passes by, more people continue to express their solidarity by: giving food and basic materials, marching in front of the main gate, and giving public statements in support of the students.

• The students began an indefinite strike today at the UPR Río Piedras because the administration did not open their doors for negotiation. There will be a poetry/musical jam at 6pm with local writers, meanwhile students give flowers to the people that arrive at the gates of the University and to the police officers who control the gates.

• Mainstream media report on the situation.

[posted April 27th - 10:20am GMT]

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• Video of public school teachers being evicted.

• Earlier today the Tactical Operation Division forcefully removed protesting teachers from the collector's office at the Treasury Department and the reception area at the Retirement System. Teachers were protesting against the government's attempt at fusing the Treasury Department's inversions with government employee's retirement funds.

• There are now EIGHT campuses on strike. SOLIDARITY!

• The Federation of Teachers has joined the protesters at the gates. This group represents the body of public school teachers on the island.

• The courts have ruled in favor of the UPR administration and against the students. Meanwhile, more campuses are joining the strike with stoppages of their own.

• I'm still waiting for any shred of evidence of the supposed attacks on security guards with pepper spray yesterday. Not that I'm saying that spiced pig is a bad thing, but that was the supposed "event" that was used as an excuse to activate the police. Where are these victims of student aggression?

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• Because you can never have too much of a good thing! The strike continues!

• Some scenes of protests on campus on April 22nd.

• The situation has calmed down. Regular police are still around, but the SWAT were pulled back. It was at the brink. The strike continues.

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• First pictures: "And they waited until nightfall".

[posted April 22nd - 0:30am GMT]

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• Open letter to the people in Puerto Rico.

• Short report in English by Associated Press on the situation.
  
  

• The offensive seems to be imminent.
  

• Police have moved to the main gates. They lack the legal recourse to enter the campus, but that doesn't seem to be be a hinderance to them.

• The police is already hurting students with pepper-spray. The shock troops have started their offensive. The students are defending themselves with whatever they can find.

• The shock troops are there. They have helicopter support. It's only a matter of time now. It is now 3:12 PM local PR time.

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• The PR Police elite forces are gathering near the University. It looks like the state wants to crush the strike with its violence, with no intention of any negotiation. That's how the UPR administration is trying to defend its anti-universitary policies. Shame on them!!!!

• The police and private rent-a-cops are already congregating around the university grounds. It is now 2:00 AM local PR time.

• Event page was set up for the strike action today.
  

• The students at the UPR Humacao campus have joined in and declared a 48-hour strike alongside the original stoppage at UPR Rio Piedras.

• The UPR President has publicly stated that they cannot negotiate with the students because we have nothing to negotiate. He states that there is no atmosphere for dialogue from the students, even though we have called him directly to meet.
  --> The UPR President has echoed this stance; there is an attempt to divide the student movement.

• The chief of the police (superintendent José Figueroa Sancha) has said that the students at the UPR are a bunch of troublemakers and that they will do their part if called upon by the UPR administration. The state university has a non-confrontation policy which prohibits the state police from entering university grounds after various violent confrontations from the 1940s-1980s.

• Preparations continue as the UPR Río Piedras prepares for 48 hours of work/study stoppage that will begin on wednesday morning and the possibility of an indefinite strike that could begin on friday.

• Our Student Negotiating Committee went to meet, as planned, the President of the UPR today. They were, however, greeted by no one and left again since there was none to meet with. (April 20th)
  

• It seems that as a gesture of "good will" that the administration of the UPR went ahead and painted over the work done by the students at the occupation. At the same time, opposite groups of students against the 48-hour strike, and any resistance in general have sprung up around Facebook. It seems that we're facing a multi-front assault.

• One of the workers union (the HEEND) of the UPR and the Association of University Professors of Puerto Rico (APPU) have expressed their public solidarity with the students as they prepare for a work/study stoppage on wednesday, April 21, 2010. Family and friends of the students organize as well to attend the strike in solidarity.

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• The stoppage/strike will begin next week on wednesday morning.

• At the General Assembly today, the students of the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico have approved a 48 hours stoppage by a vote of 761 in favor, 263 against. The work/study stoppage would be taken as a way to pressure the UPR administration to cancel the moratorium on scholarships (to athletes, honor... students, sons/daughters of university workers) and agree to stop any attempt to privatize any of the various campi.

• An activist is being cited: “Our goal was not the closing of the university, as some bloggers invariably insist on, but to break free from the monotony of a lecture, of existing power relations, and of the prevalent relations of production. We wanted to, as the Humanities Manifesto stated, ‘smash the machine’. And we did.”

• LatinaLista.net gives you a short report on the situation just before the General Assembly today.

• Pictures of the paintings (pintata) at the Humanities occupation.

• Some pictures of todays general assembly can be accessed here.