Police, children clash in schools protest

Press, 19 September 1985, Page 8

Police, children clash in schools protest

NZPA-Reuter Cape Town South African policemen fired rubber bullets and tear-gas yesterday to disperse pupils, parents, and teachers demanding the reopening of Coloured schools shut down by the authorities during riots. The police said that 107 boys and girls and 66 adults had been arrested on charges of trespass at a school in the Cape Town suburb of Athlone. The protesters tried to bar security forces from the area by blocking roads with vehicles, one of which was set alight. The Government closed 450 schools and colleges on September 6, saying that the safety of the pupils could no longer be guaranteed after the riots. An anti-apartheid group has started a nation-wide three-week fast to demand the withdrawal of troops from black townships and an end to military conscription for whites.

A spokesman for the “End Conscription Campaign” said that more than 100 clerics and dissidents were taking part in the fast, some for the entire period. The number was expected to swell to more than 1000 on a national day of fasting called for October 7, the first anniversary of the Army’s entry into the townships to quell the riots, in which 700 people have died over the last 20 months, he said.