SANTIAGO: Dozens of Chilean students on Thursday broke into a meeting of lawmakers attended by the education minister, forcing its suspension on a third straight day of protests over national education reform.
A live broadcast on local television showed around 60 people gaining access to the Chilean congress in Santiago as a Senate committee discussed the education budget for 2012.
Students stormed the room and some of them climbed on the table to demand a referendum on the country's future education policy.
After an hour, the committee session was resumed and the protesters evicted but a group of them stayed inside the building until finally the parliamentary session was suspended a second time for good. The students later left.
Hundreds of people have been arrested since early Tuesday in Chile as clashes erupted between demonstrators and police during two days of mass street protests over student demands for a free public university education.
Classes have been on hold for months in many schools and universities during the demonstrations, which first erupted in May and routinely draw tens of thousands of students into the streets.
The protests are Chile's biggest since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship more than two decades ago.
The government accused those who disrupted Thursday's meeting of insulting lawmakers and said it would take legal action against them.
About 100 people gathered outside the building in support of those inside, under the watchful eye of police.
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