Johannesburg Students Appeal For Support

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31764, 22 August 1968, Page 15

Johannesburg Students Appeal For Support

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) JOHANNESBURG, August 21. Protesting Johannesburg students have asked political, church and business organisations to support their protest against Government restrictions on academic freedom.

The student rebellion, crystallising as a protest against South Africa’s racial laws and authoritarianism, simmered angrily after Government action to thwart the students’ plans to march in

protest through the streets of Johannesburg. The march fizzled into a passive roadside protest outside Witwatersrand University, where demonstrators were pelted with oranges, eggs and paint by Afrikaaner counterdemonstrators as the police looked on.

In Cape Town, where the revolt had its beginnings, students continued a weeklong sit-in protest against the Government’s ban of the appointment of an African, Mr Archie Mafeje, to a lecturing post at the university. A leader of the Johannesburg students, Mr John KaneBerman, told a meeting of

several hundred undergraduates: “The students . . . have ranged themselves fairly and squarely on the side of a free society and upheld their right to dissent and protest.

“It is now up to the Opposition party and other bodies to come and join us in the defence of these rights. Let the churches state where they stand. . . . Let the Leader of the Opposition state publicly where he stands."