Cape Town – Some nursing students at Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s Heideveld campus are receiving trauma counselling after several of them were arrested and held in jail before appearing in court following protests.
A total of 22 students were arrested on the Heideveld campus on February 12 and detained at Manenberg police station.
Police released nine of them after the ANC arranged for Advocate Venice Burgins to represent them, the ANC said in a statement on Wednesday.
Burgins said she asked police to allow her to observe the conditions under which the 13 were being held.
“We checked the male and female cells and informed students of their rights and that we were instructed by the ANC to represent them.
"Fear, shock and deep trauma were written on all these students’ faces. It was truly a sore sight to observe.
"All of them have no previous convictions and no pending cases but remained in the cells because the system allowed it,” she said.
She added that the ANC Youth League, its Western Cape chairperson and the South African Students’ Congress “had also rallied to the assistance of the students”.
Burgins also said that for days CPUT had not fed students who had taken part in a protest on the Heideveld campus.
She said she contacted CPUT to express her outrage. “To use food as a weapon is most inhuman and also to enforce submission,” she communicated to CPUT.
She added in her communication: “It is encapsulated in the Geneva Conventions that not even prisoners of war, enemy forces wounded or shipwrecked shall be denied food. That is a crime against humanity.”
Burgins praised ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs who intervened. He contacted the NGOs, which contributed “tremendously”.
Burgins said Mothers for Justice also assisted the students, as did the broader community.
She also informed Human Rights commissioner the Reverend Chris Nissen, who acted immediately to this clarion call.
“The commissioner went to the premises of the institution and noted that the kitchen was closed and according to another it was due to the students own fault.
"This was the most absurd reponse as not even prisoners of war are starved because it is regarded as a crime against humanity.”
Jacobs said he was disappointed and angered at the manner in which some in CPUT’s administration had dealt with the students.
“I did not expect CPUT to react this way. We expected better from CPUT.”