Culture of memory: Students and the police

09.July 2025 Filip Mirilović

The repressive dream of every dictatorship

With the imposition of a state of emergency and curfew, the use of the military, and eventually arrests, protesters in Chile were persecuted and punished. Decrees were introduced whereby university rectors were appointed by the army, while campuses were nationalized or privatized. It was only in 1987, near the end of Pinochet's dictatorship, that the students managed to force the regime to make concessions through a new series of protests and restore some kind of limited autonomy.