UCT lays charges of trespassing following ‘revolutionary disruption of exams’

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has laid charges of trespassing and malicious damage to property with the South African Police Service (SAPS) following a disruption of exams on Monday.

According to the university, a group of individuals who are neither employees nor students of UCT disrupted exams on the upper campus.

“UCT condemns these actions in the strongest possible terms. It is an infringement on the rights of students to sit their mid-year exams in a conducive environment. Campus Protections Services Officers are working to secure all exam venues on upper campus,” it said.

“UCT has laid charges of trespassing and malicious damage to property with the South African Police Services (SAPS) and will work closely with SAPS.”

According to the university, exams that were scheduled for the remainder of Monday proceeded as planned.

But the UCT Students’ Representative Council (SRC) says all university activities must be halted pending the resolution of workers’ grievances.

While the university said the protesters were neither students or workers, the SRC said it was the workers, calling on students to be patient while they try to resolve the matter.

“Staying true to our belief that workers and students rights are intrinsically linked, we will not remain silent while the cries of our mothers and fathers, whom are the backbone of this university, remain unheard. As such the SRC calls for the halt of university activities, including examinations, until such a time the grievances of workers have been heard,” said the SRC in a statement.

“We cannot continue business as usual while some amongst us suffer. We encourage students to remain patient while workers engage the university to resolve the issue at hand.”

The EFF student command condemned the university for laying criminal charges against the protesters, labelling their actions at the Sports Centre as “revolutionary disruption of exams”.

“We abhor and condemn the opening of criminal charges of trespassing and damage to property by UCT against the workers. This is an act of suppression and demonstrates the continuous silencing of workers,” it said in a statement.

The EFFSC also supported the call for university activities to be halted.

“Though it is a huge inconvenience to students, we must be selfless and understand that the workers are making an ethical call for basic human dignity that is enjoyed by ‘professional workers’ in the university and not workers – the backbone of the university. It is a cry for access to medical services, educational benefits and many basic needs.

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“It is on this bedrock that the workers proclaim they have had enough and thus are left with no choice but to engage the university in a more radical and militant manner to demonstrate frustration at being exploited.”

It said it would engage university management in a bid to get them to drop the charges against “workers”, “but more importantly, to bring forth the call for insourcing as we have been side-by-side with workers long before it was fashionable”.

Compiled by Vhahangwele Nemakonde