Venezuelan protests for and against President Hugo Chávez's proposed 2 December constitutional referendum occurred after the National Assembly approved the referendum on 2 November 2007. Foundation of the Student Movement Student activists have been mobilizing in Venezuela since as early as 1998. In 2002, the Red Democrática Universitaria Estudantil was founded, a national student federation. According to Rayma López, one of the prominent student leaders involved with the organization, "Student leaders met, but as the police intelligence harassed and prosecuted them, these meetings came to a halt." The movement also experienced issues internally, as there was tension between groups of student from different universities. Closure of RCTV In December 2006, President Chávez announced that he intended to shut down RCTV (Radio Caracas Televisión), the last of the country's private television channels, and there were immediate repercussions seen throughout the country. University and school students gathered nationwide and organized workshops of human rights principles; the intended closure "violated two human rights: freedom of expression and freedom of thought". On 28 March 2007, the Venezuelan government failed to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV. In the days leading up to the decision, students from different universities around the country had already begun to gather in their campuses in protest. They believed that without RCTV, the people would be left without an objective source of information, since all other private channels had made treaties with the government about what to broadcast. On the day the announcement was made, student protests were violently broken up by the National Guard using teargas and blank rifle shots, while some students that protested were even shot at with live ammunition by Chávez supporters. Several months later, the student movement was given the opportunity to present their beliefs to parliament when the Bolivarian political party Podemos (that had recently joined the opposition) fought for the students' right to raise their concerns. Student representatives spoke out at parliament on 7 June 2007, and the speeches were broadcast live on television and radio. Douglas Barrios, a student leader from the Universidad Metropolitana, gave a speech in which he addressed the political neutrality of the student movement: We are not neoliberals, we are liberated beings. We are not the opposition; we are a proposition. Youth is not on the streets today fighting for business interests or political tendencies. We are on the streets making politics without traditional politicians, fighting for our