At least eight Galician independence supporters were arrested yesterday when a protest in Santiago de Compostela ended up in confrontation with the police.

The protest was organised by Galicia Bilingüe, a group supporting the use of the Galician language in Galicia, to demand the 'freedom to decide' to use gallego or castellano at school and in the civil service, but ended in scuffles between the police and a group of independence supporters, some 250 individuals, according to police reports.

Before the march even got underway, small groups of pro-independence protesters descended upon the starting point in the city's Alameda and the first scuffles broke out.  Police used rubber bullets and made their first arrest.

When the protest march was reaching its destination, Plaza de la Quintana, there were more scuffles in the area around the cathedral and pro-independence protesters threw stones and bottles, causing damage to numerous buildings and breaking headlamps on a police car and a National Radio vehicle.

Police succeeded in preventing the independence supporters from entering the Plaza and Gloria Lago, the president of Galicia Bilingüe, was able to read out the group's manifesto, in which she demanded 'the freedom to choose' adding 'people have rights, not languages'.

The Secretary General of the PP in Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, was among the approximately 7000 people who attended the protest, as was Rosa Díez from the Unión de Progreso y Democracia along with former Health Minister, Ana Pastor. 

Rueda said that he was there 'for one simple reason: because we believe in freedom and we are Galicians and want to behave like Galicians'.  When asked whether the right to be taught in Galician meant segregation within schools, Rueda answered that 'anything can be organised using freedom as the foundation.  What we can't do is impose one language or the other'. 

Rosa Díez insisted her reason for joining the protest was to defend the right to use gallego in schools and because those 'rights had been violated'.