For the Record (3)

December 26, 1980

Some 1,000 demonstrating youths took to the streets of Zurich Christmas Eve to demand an autonomous recreation center free of conventional closing hours and other controls. Their march began peacefully, but then escalated, and police began using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them.

Young people began demonstrating almost every weekend last summer to back their demands for their own youth center. City authorities offered them an empty factory building, but they turned this down, not wanting to be subject to regular closing hours.