EFF CONDEMNS POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST UJ STUDENTS AND WORKERS

The EFF condemns the police brutality that has been meted against University of Johannesburg students and workers protesting against outsourcing. The assault of students and workers was first started by the campus security against an unarmed and defenseless students and worker union. This has now culminated into police arrests of 163 students and workers who were peacefully protesting against outsourcing.

The EFF calls for the immediate release of students and workers by the police. There is no justifiable reason whatsoever to hold peaceful demonstrators in prison treating them criminals. The university management must further drop all the charges and suspensions against these protestors and take to the negotiation table to commit to the end of outsourcing.

Outsourcing of basic services in universities has by no doubt led to the dehumanization of black workers in South Africa. Many of these workers work for peanuts and under very hard conditions. The era of outsourcing must come to and end as does the era of fee universities. All workers must belong and be part of the university and enjoy the benefits of enjoyed by people who work for universities. These benefits include the fact that their children, like those of lecturers and managers, will be able to get into university without paying anything.

The University of Johannesburg proves its entrapment in the old apartheid idea of dealing with dissent; which is by always unleashing police and security corporal punishment on those who disagree with the authorities. UJ must take lesson from other universities where students have demonstrated. The point is to take the moral and logical validity of the protest than to dismiss it with police brutality. No amount of brutality ever manages to suppress the truth: outsourcing must fall.

Issued by EFF National Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Quintin Ndlozi, 6 November 2015