The Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation, Ximena Lincolao, visited the Universidad Austral (UACH) in Valdivia to inaugurate the academic year. During her visit, a group of protesting students intercepted her and confronted her over the recent announcement of the elimination of master’s and doctoral scholarships abroad and restrictions on free university tuition. The incident ended with a group of students throwing water at her, pushing her, and kicking the official vehicle in which she was traveling.
The government described this as an “attack on authority”. President José Antonio Kast condemned the incident on the social media platform X and attributed it to “an ideologically driven group with a single objective: to silence and intimidate”. It was another student and member of the political party Frente Amplio (a center-left party to which former President Gabriel Boric belongs), Mauro Villanueva, who approached the Investigative Police to provide information that led to three students from the Universidad Austral being charged, and who provided details of the WhatsApp group through which they organized.
The University Student Federation condemned the acts of violence, but also stated that the incident has led to instances of harassment and threats against students for political reasons. As stated by the president and law student, Valentina Jara, “the entire student body has ended up being criminalized and stigmatized, creating the stereotype that UACH students are criminals”.
The preliminary hearing judge, Pablo Yáñez, ordered the youths to comply with a restraining order prohibiting them from approaching the victim and requiring them to check in every two weeks, rather than the pre-trial detention sought by the Ministry of Security, which had characterized the incident as a “kidnapping”—a claim the judge dismissed as “science fiction.”