Johannesburg - It will be a weekend in jail for about 150 students and workers who had been protesting outside the University of Johannesburg’s Kingsway campus for three days.
By 7 on Friday night, relatives and friends of those arrested during the UJ protests were bringing food and refreshments to them while they were being held in the Brixton police station’s holding cells.
Being a weekend, it’s likely they will only appear in court on Monday.
“The chances of them being released today are minimal because the police have to charge them within 48 hours,” said Carina Conradie from the human rights organisation RighttoKnow.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of students and workers who were protesting outside the Kingsway campus over the outsourcing of cleaners and security personnel by the university were held for violating a court interdict. The interdict prohibits protesters from coming within 500m of the UJ campus.
In the minutes before police arrived to make the arrests, about 200 protesters walked silently towards the campus.
They walked with their hands raised, marching under the distinctive orange bridge that connects UJ’s parking lot to its campus. When they neared the intersection that leads to the institution’s main gate, they sat with their hands still raised. Even as they sang Senzeni na (What wrong have we done?), they never lowered their hands. But the police vans pulled up anyway to make the arrests. Many of the protesters danced, sang or simply held their fists in the air as they crowded into the vans.
As night closed in Conradie, said they still hadn’t determined exactly how many people had been arrested.
A crowd of protesters gathered outside the Brixton police station to sing in solidarity with those arrested.
“Right now we just want them to have something to eat and we are hoping that they are okay. I have spoken to some who say they are fine,” said Conradie.
She said they were still gathering information but at the last count they estimated that 150 people were being held.
According to Conradie, police would not release a formal charge sheet until they had completed the processing.
“This is really bad. These students were protesting peacefully. I saw a video clip of my son being manhandled without provocation. But we will not let this go,” said Professor Yosuf Veriaza.
UJ SRC leader Mmangaliso Mkhonta said there was no reason for cleaning and security services to be outsourced.
He said while management had committed to review the policy, it hadn’t given a time frame. Cleaners said they wanted the university to give them a firm date on when they would start in-sourcing their services.
Saturday Star