Cape Town - UCT has issued provisional suspension orders to four students who it claims were illegally occupying Avenue House after May 18 – the deadline for an amnesty period granted by the university.
The university had urged members of the Rhodes Must Fall movement to vacate the building, but students were refusing to budge.
Earlier this month, vice-chancellor Dr Max Price said a decision had been taken to grant an amnesty period in respect of all protest-related incidents that took place between March 9 and May 18.
He said no disciplinary action would be brought against any student or staff member in respect of these events.
Gerda Kruger, UCT’s executive director: communications and marketing department, said the university had hoped that the occupation would end following the amnesty but it didn’t. “We called in third parties to try to mediate to find a solution; they were not successful. We have made multiple and repeated attempts to persuade the occupiers to leave the building as they are interfering with university business. They have bluntly refused.”
She said the orders didn’t interfere with the students’ ability to attend lectures or take exams but prohibited them from entering or occupying Avenue House and other administration buildings.
The university has issued notice of intent to seek a court order that would evict students from the building and prevent them from occupying it.
“Students who are suspended have a right to a hearing within 72 hours. Those hearings allow the students to make their case in regards to the suspension. The chair at the hearing may after hearing the two parties decide to confirm, vary or set aside the suspension. The hearings are taking place today (on Monday). It is too soon to know the outcome.”
Members of the movement protested outside the Bremner building on Monday where the hearings were scheduled to take place.
In a document posted on its Facebook page, the Rhodes Must Fall movement said the university had “arbitrarily charged four more RMF comrades with suspension hearings for the ‘occupation’ of Avenue House when in fact more than 50 students occupied the space at different periods after the 18th of May 2015”.
“Management has also initiated court proceedings against the movement as a whole for both this and our previous ‘occupation’, despite the false promise of ‘amnesty’, a term which must be problematised. Amnesty suggests that the movement has done something wrong and it also absolves management from their own complicity in their violent actions towards black student protesters.”
It stated that the university processes were unjust and acting in accordance with them was “to allow a violent system to continue unchallenged”.
Cape Argus