Durban - With another University of KwaZulu-Natal building being torched, a number of students are expected to be slapped with suspensions on Thursday.
The suspensions are for offences related to student protests which began earlier this month, and which continue to simmer.
The Mercury understands that at least 10 students will face disciplinary hearings, for offences which include public violence and inciting racial violence on social media.
On Tuesday night the student wellness office on the Westville campus was set alight, but UKZN security officers managed to contain and put out the blaze, and pursued five people seen fleeing the scene. UKZN spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said two of the five were caught and handed over to the police.
Seshoka would not confirm the specific suspensions, but said that UKZN would be dishing out suspensions to any student transgressing the university’s rules, or the law.
At the Edgewood campus on Wednesday, students pelted security personnel with stones. One student and five security personnel were injured.
At the Pietermaritzburg campus, a group of fewer than 20 students tried to disrupt classes, and were dispersed.
Seshoka said at the Howard College campus, protesting students tried unsuccessfully to disrupt an electrical engineering exam on Wednesday morning.
“We urge all students to adhere to the university rules, regulations and applicable protocols in dealing with grievances. All those who engage in illegal activities or act outside of the set processes and procedures for raising grievances will face the full might of the university’s disciplinary processes and, where necessary, the law,” Seshoka said.
On Monday a 21-year-old student was arrested for malicious damage to property and for contravening a court order when he allegedly took aim at his peers with a fire extinguisher on the Pietermaritzburg campus.
A 23-year-old student, believed to be a member of the student representative council of the Westville campus, handed himself over to the police in Durban on Tuesday for his alleged involvement in the violent protests, which saw two cars and an administration building on the Westville campus vandalised and set alight.
Westville SRC president Lukhanyo Mtshingana was arrested more than two weeks ago along with Luwazi Magwaza – a former UKZN student. Students have subsequently been interdicted from gathering unlawfully at any of UKZN’s campuses.
South African Students Congress KZN secretary Pinda Mofokeng said on Wednesday that protests would continue as long as UKZN refused to reverse a decision to scrap the registration appeal committee, and went ahead with increasing its registration fee.
However, Seshoka denied this, saying that UKZN students were still allowed to make use of the appeal policy, and that an increase in the registration fee remained up for discussion.
The appeal committee was created to help students by allowing them to pay their fees over a two-year period.
However, UKZN had found that the students to whom that arrangement had been extended had not paid more than 10% of their fees over the two-year period. The appeal policy has been under review since last year.
Mofokeng dismissed suggestions that the protests were a vote-garnering tactic for the SRC elections.
KZN police spokesman Colonel Jay Naicker said no arrests were made at the Edgewood, Howard College and Pietermaritzburg campuses on Wednesday, and that the two people arrested for the latest fire at the Westville campus would appear in court “soon”.
The Mercury