Giles Tremlett in Madrid
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012 15.23 GMT
A tense standoff between demonstrators and police in Valencia, eastern Spain, threatens to spark protest across the country as schoolchildren and students start a fifth day of rallies against education cuts and heavy-handed policing. Baton-wielding police pursued demonstrators around the city on Monday as protests grew following the arrest of a 17-year-old protester from a local secondary school.
Police claimed they were attacked by demonstrators hurling bottles and that 11 officers had been injured.
Schoolchildren and university students are at the forefront of daily protests in Valencia against a regional government gripped by corruption scandals as it imposes austerity measures to control debt and balance its budget.
Police have arrested 43 students and schoolchildren, including eight minors, in the city over the past four days.
Demonstrations in support of the Valencia students were being organised in half a dozen cities around the country on Tuesday evening. Valencia's students, meanwhile, said they would continue to protest "with our books and hands in the air".
The Valencia region, which is run by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's party (PP), is seen as a test of how his new government will set about imposing further austerity measures on a country already tumbling back into recession and gripped by 23% unemployment.
Rajoy's government has vowed to crack down on spontaneous protest, with interior ministry officials saying they will not tolerate the kind of camp-outs in town squares organised by the Indignado movement last year.
Local police chief Antonio Moreno has called the demonstrators "the enemy", adding fuel to complaints that his officers are using heavy-handed tactics against protesters as young as 16.
Trade unions and opposition politicians have criticised police, while the local journalists' association says several of its members have been treated roughly.
"My daughter was with me and her two grandmothers … We weren't demonstrating, but they didn't seem to care," said Ana Navarrete, mother of 17-year-old arrestee Alumdena, told El País newspaper. "They tore her out of my arms, grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the ground and, between three of them, took her away."
Interior minister Jorge Fernández said he would inform parliament about the incidents, adding that demonstrators had disobeyed police instructions.
Valencia's government is at the centre of a number of PP corruption scandals, including one involving the King Juan Carlos's son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarín – who is due in court on Saturday.
The regional government's credit rating was recently reduced to junk status by ratings agencies.
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