- Title: Police fire stun grenades at protesting students
- Date: 4th October 2016
- Summary: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (OCTOBER 4, 2016) (REUTERS) STUDENTS AND MEDIA STANDING ON STAIRS / CROWD OF STUDENTS STUDENTS GATHERED POLICE FIRE STUN GRENADES / PEOPLE RUNNING / SMOKE RISING POLICE VEHICLE DRIVING DOWN ROAD STUDENTS RUNNING DOWN STREET / SOUND OF STUN GRENADES BEING FIRED (SOUNDBITE) (English) WITS UNIVERSITY STUDENT LEADER, FASIHA HASSAN, SAYING: "We have just been opened fire by stun grenades, tear gas, totally unprovoked. We were just marching as students, then they trapped us in a small space " STUDENTS GATHERED BY VEHICLES ARMED POLICE WALKING UP ROAD VARIOUS OF ARMED POLICE POLICE FORMING A LINE POLICE WALKING THROUGH CROWD CROWD OF PROTESTING STUDENTS GATHERED / CHANTING AND WALKING FORWARD / RUNNING AWAY / SOUND OF STUN GRENADES BEING FIRED / SMOKE RISING / PEOPLE RUNNING / POLICE GATHERED AROUND STUDENT ARMED POLICE STANDING STUDENTS GATHERED POLICE TALKING POLICE STANDING IN LINE
- Embargoed: 19th October 2016 12:35
- Keywords: Wits protest fees must fall students police clashes campus violence university
- Location: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
- City: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
- Country: South Africa
- Topics: Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA00152LB8EF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Protesters at South Africa's Wits University attacked police vehicles with rocks and overturned another on Tuesday (October 4), as violence in nationwide demonstrations over high tuition fees escalated.
Police fired stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of students who marched through the university's campus in Johannesburg, performing the "toyi-toyi" protest dance made popular during the struggle against oppressive white rule.
At least two people were arrested earlier when police moved in to enforce a court order on public gathering at Wits, whose full name is University of the Witwatersrand.
Demonstrations over the cost of university education, which is prohibitive for many black students, have highlighted frustration at enduring inequalities in Africa's most industrialised country more than two decades after the end of apartheid.
The square in front of the main hall on campus was strewn with spent shotgun shells and rocks after several skirmishes between police and protesters.
Protests first erupted last year, then subsided as the government froze fee increases and set up a commission to look into the education funding system.
The unrest boiled over again, closing some classes and universities, when the commission said on Sept. 19 that fees would continue to rise, albeit with an 8 percent cap in 2017.
University administrators across South Africa have warned that any further fee freezes could damage their academic programmes. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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