A protest staged by university students in Sydney this morning has taken a disturbing turn, after reports are currently rolling in claiming police used pepper spray to ward off protesters who were attempting to enter a lecture held by Education Minister Christopher Pyne at the Sydney Masonic Centre.
Protesters sat in the gutter after being pepper sprayed, according to SMH.
Students trying to enter the Sydney Masonic centre where Christopher Pyne is speaking say they were pepper sprayed pic.twitter.com/Me0ey0C6cc
— Rebecca Barrett (@becjbarr) February 13, 2015
Aside from being a particularly heinous method employed by the police, the move hardly calmed the reasoning behind the protesters’ demonstration today.
Eliza Buckley, a student on the scene of the protest spoke to SMH: “Christopher Pyne is a despicable human being for creating that class divide where only the wealthy can afford a university education,” she said.
Another student, Ridah Hassan said, “It demonstrates the lengths the NSW Police will go to to defend the Education Minister Christopher Pyne from the people he rules over.”
Christopher Pyne’s planned cuts to university funding have been caught in the line of fire recently, as The Senate is unlikely to pass the government’s proposed and controversial deregulation of fees. The move has been boldly shut down in parliament this week by a surprisingly eloquent Clive Palmer.
“It was a peaceful protest to protest at the government’s deregulation
agenda and we were pepper sprayed when making that point,” SMH reports Hassan saying.
More on this to come.
Via SMH.
