Students being arrested yesterday afternoon. Photo courtesy of DC Vote

Six students from area universities were arrested yesterday afternoon during a protest for D.C. voting rights, budget autonomy and statehood on Capitol Hill. The arrests come as activists have started a renewed push for Congress to grant D.C. budget autonomy.

The students were from various local chapters of the D.C. Student Statehood Association, an organization started last year by Shadow Representative-elect Nate Bennett-Fleming and George Washington University and D.C. native Markus Batchelor, who was among those arrested yesterday. (He was similarly arrested during a protest at the White House last summer.) Fellow GW students Matt Laurinavicius and Patrick Kennedy were also arrested, as where students from American University and Howard University.

The arrests happened at the same spot where Mayor Vince Gray, members of the D.C. Council and some three-dozen residents were arrested during a D.C. voting rights protest on April 11, 2011. They also happened a year to the day since Ward 6 ANC commissioner Keith Silver was similarly arrested during a one-man protest.