UJ joins Wits protest

Students at the University of Johannesburg marched to join protesting Wits students in the #feesmustfall campaign.

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Johannesburg - Students at the University of Johannesburg marched to join protesting Witwatersrand University on Thursday.

A group of Wits student earlier went to the UJ’s Banting Road campus to urge students there to join the #FeesMustFall campaign. The institution’s security closed Banting Road.

Students at UJ held SRC elections on Wednesday.

The institution’s leadership indicated then that they would concentrate on the elections before deciding on whether to join other campuses against proposed fee hikes for 2016.

A larger contingent of UJ students then took to the streets of Auckland Park, under the watchful eye of the police.

They carried placards that read “Free Education Must No Longer Be A Rhetoric” and “The Born Free Generations Ask Their Parents: Where Is The Freedom If I Must Fight For Education?”

At Wits campus in Braamfontein, students vowed to occupy Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters in the Johannesburg CBD.

“We will occupy Luthuli House the same way as UCT comrades occupied Parliament yesterday (on Wednesday). Asijiki … no fee increase now and forever,” said one of the students.

The city would be shutdown through a joint march with UJ students, the students declared.

The students carried a placard that read “#Occupy Luthuli House … Daddy Please Don’t Shoot Us We Are Coming Home”.

The Presidency announced on Thursday that President Jacob Zuma would meet with university managers as well as student leaders on Friday in a bid to end the nationwide protests.

ANA