This Video Shows Police Firing Rubber Bullets At Students Demanding Cheaper College
Protesters demanding that colleges across South Africa make college more affordable for poor students were met with rubber bullets and arrest.
Video shot on Wednesday shows police dragging away a student and shooting others with rubber bullets to disperse a protest demanding cheaper college for low-income students.
The altercation took place at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, where classes have been shut down for the last week in the face of demonstrations.
The video, filmed by Stuart Wilson, a member of student media outlet Oppidan, opens with police interacting with a group of students soon after the arrest of several other students across campus.
Protests have been banned on Rhodes' campus for the last several months, after a different protest movement — this one against rape culture at the university — resulted in an interdiction against demonstrations, banning students from blocking roads, disrupting classes, and other actions.
That in turn has given the police the responsibility to disperse protests and arrest offenders. At one point in the video, a police officer can be heard telling a group of students on campus grounds moving towards the sidewalk where the police had gathered "Get back! Get back or I will shoot you!"
Oppidan Press / Via youtube.com
The earlier arrests spurred students to march across campus, at one point blocking the roads for five minutes to dance and chant protest slogans, before moving on to the point where the video begins.
"Are you going to shoot me for crossing the road?" one of the protesters asks the police as he crosses the street away from campus. "You do not know our pain, our families' pain!" he yelled at the bystanders on the other side of the median.
Oppidan Press / Via youtube.com
Soon after the lead protester crossed back, raising his fist and prompting the others to do the same, the police opened fire.
All told ten people were arrested at Rhodes University on Wednesday. Police told local media that they were under threat from students throwing rocks, which necessitated them opening fire, an explanation that students dispute.
Oppidan Press / Via youtube.com