S.A. police question students

Press, 31 May 1977, Page 8

S.A. police question students

NZPA Johannesburg The South African police have questioned Asian high school students and teachers in the last two weeks about the formation of a student ' movement in the Asian township in Johannesburg of Lenasia,

Mr Ahmad Essop, branch secretary of the South African Indian Teachers’ Association, said yesterday that between 10 and 20 students a day — totalling more than 100 — had been ordered to report to a police station in nearby Soweto, the city’s African satellite township which has a militant student movement.

There they were questioned about the movement’s inaugural public meeting in Lenasia Civic Hall on March 31, he said.

According to Mr Essop, ithe students formed their own movement when headmasters in the Asian township’s schools refused to allow student representative councils.

A student was detained by security police after membership forms for the movement were found in his possession, he added. Mr Essop said that he and two other teachers were also interrogated. The South African Press Association quoted a police spokesman as saying that it was possible students were being questioned, but that he knew nothing about the interrogations.