Fees Must Fall protesters and Vetus Schola private security clashed in and around the University of Cape Town (UCT) library last Tuesday, 18 October. On social media, blame was assigned to the protesters, the security guards, or both.

GroundUp’s reporters were outside the library and could not see what happened inside.

We interviewed witnesses inside the library and searched for accounts and photos in the public domain (mainly social media) to try to reconstruct what happened. We managed to interview three witnesses, but none were prepared to allow us to use their names, two of them (Witness A and Witness B) because they were afraid, and the third (Witness C) for professional reasons.

On 18 October, protesters attempted to force their way into the UCT library to keep students from using the space to study, according to library staff who were present.

While private security guards were responding to protesters “violently banging” on the evacuation door of the library’s Knowledge Commons, another group of protesters succeeded in forcing their way into the library’s main entrance, said Witness A, a member of library management, who asked not to be named be because of direct threats to staff from protesters.

A video taken by a GroundUp reporter the same day shows a group of protesters throwing dustbins at security guards outside Molly Blackburn Hall, the building adjacent to the library, which Witness A said happened just before that same group forced their way into the library.

Click here to read the full story on GroundUp.