Students protesting in Chile. Image by Sebastian Poch Velasco, The Stroboscope on Flickr (CC BY 2.0) This has caused a huge controversy in social networks, mainly because it brings back memories from both Pinochet's dictatorship as well as subsequent Concert of Parties for Democracy (Concertación in Spanish) governments' use of it to "crack down democratic actions", as was described by Tomas de la Rementeria (@tomas_dr) in his column in the debate website Sentidos Comunes ("Common Sense") :
Esto ha causado una gran controversia en las redes sociales, principalmente porque a algunos les trae recuerdos tanto de los tiempos de la dictadura de Pinochet como de su uso durante gobiernos de la Concertación "para acallar acciones democráticas", como lo expresa Tomás de la Rementería (@tomas_dr) en su columna en el espacio de debate en línea Sentidos Comunes: