Clashes broke out in Beirut on Saturday (December 19) between Lebanese riot police and students demonstrating against universities' decision to adopt a new dollar exchange rate to set the price of tuition fees, raising them by facto.
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Near the entrance to the American University of Beirut (UAB), in the Hamra neighborhood, security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who tried to approach the main gate, a correspondent found. 'AFP on site.
The students responded by throwing projectiles at the police who formed a human shield to bar their way.
No injuries were immediately reported.
Exchange rates and rising tuition fees
The protest follows a decision by UAB and the Lebanese American University (UAL) - another major private institution - to set tuition fees on an exchange rate at 3,900 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, rather than on the official rate (1500 pounds to the dollar), causing these fees to rise sharply.
Students fear that other universities will follow suit and thus cause an exodus to public institutions that are already underfunded and overwhelmed.
Hundreds of students gathered in Hamra during the
day for
“
Student Rage Day
”.
They sang slogans against the government and called for affordable education in a country mired in its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
According to the United Nations, more than half of the population in Lebanon now lives in poverty.
Later that evening, protesters set fire to garbage cans and attacked banks before being turned back by police.
During the year, the Lebanese pound lost more than two-thirds of its value against the dollar on the black market - on Saturday the dollar was trading for at least 8,200 Lebanese pounds - and prices exploded.
The banks, for their part, have suspended transactions in dollars and restricted withdrawals of Lebanese pounds.
Universities have had difficulty coping with the depreciation of the currency, in particular due to the maintenance of the official fixed rate by the government.
