Primera Línea
group of Chilean protesters
Primera Línea (lit. 'First Line' or 'Frontline') is the name for a loose collective of protesters dedicated to physically confronting Chilean riot police, that is, through acts of civil disobedience, in the context of the 2019–2022 Chilean protests. In the words of a member "it's about contesting [state] power". The Primera Línea is made up of an assortment of individual citizens and grassroots organizations called "clans", lacking central authority. A wide range of sympathetic organizations support Primera Línea providing them with aid, food and legal advice. Members are of diverse backgrounds, including laborers, immigrants, university students and sports fans. In addition, 16 hooded minors identified as part of this strike force have been detained. They have subsequently been placed at the disposal of the National Service for Minors (Sename).
Description
Members of Primera Línea tend to assume distinct roles, such as shield-bearers, stone-throwers, tear gas grenade extinguishers, slingers, laser pointers, and tear gas medics. Among these the laser pointers are the most numerous, their role consisting in disrupting police sight, yet there are cases where surveillance drones have been downed by the laser pointers. Although they do not have a homogeneous political and ideological position, it can be determined that they are members of the opposition to the government of Sebastián Piñera and have acquired an increasingly violent rivalry against Carabineros de Chile.
“Primera Línea” enters the record as group of Chilean protesters. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Primera, Línea and group can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q88029327. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Primera Línea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.