Riot police in South Africa have fired teargas and stun grenades at hundreds of students who stormed the parliament precinct in Cape Town in protest at a proposed increase in university fees.
Police repeatedly attempted to disperse the students from the steps of the national assembly, with limited success, as the protesters tried to stage a sit-in to disrupt a mid-term budget speech being delivered by the finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene. At least one student was injured, and several students have been detained.
“We were pushed back by police with force. The stun grenade was shot right next to my ear. I still have the buzzing in my ear,” said Motheo Lengoasa, a student at the University of Cape Town, as others chanted and sang songs demanding the fees be reduced.
Earlier students lay prostrate on the ground in front of the entrance to the assembly building where Nene was speaking.
“This looks like 1976 all over again,” Lengoasa said, referring to the Soweto uprising where police killed at least 69 students who were protesting against plans to teach them in Afrikaans.
Many of South Africa’s universities have been hit by protests, some of them violent, by students demanding that the increase in tuition fees by as much as 11% be scrapped. Protests have taken place across the country, including in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom and Grahamstown.
The demonstrations began last week at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. Critics say the fee increase will further disadvantage black students, who are already relatively underrepresented.
The protesters have rejected a proposal from some student leaders, university dons and the higher education minister, Blade Nzimande, to cap fee increases at 6% for 2016, just above inflation.
University bosses said the increases were needed to maintain standards, and called on the government to find the extra funding.
As chaos erupted around the parliament building, Nene, standing calmly at the podium inside the chamber, continued to read his speech, in which he outlined the gloomy outlook for Africa’s most advanced economy. He criticised the protests, but said efforts were being made to find solutions.
“We have been reminded this past week of the challenges of financing the expansion of further education and university opportunities,” he said. “It needs to be said that disruption of learning is not constructive, neither is disruption of parliament, but minister Nzimande has rightly indicated the need to strengthen student financing further, and to find solutions where the current situation is inadequate, and government is seized with this matter.”
The president, Jacob Zuma, who wore a stony expression through Nene’s speech, has not commented on the protests.
MPs belonging to the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were ejected after they tried to prevent Nene from delivering his budget speech, which was delayed by an hour. After the speech, other MPs were advised to remain in their offices until security had been restored in parliament.
At parliament, students demanded to be addressed by Nzimande, who is also the head of the South African Communist party.
Eventually, Nzimande agreed, speaking through a loudspeaker from behind a security fence, but his words were inaudible above the booing.
University fees currently vary between institutions. In Johannesburg, Wits student leader Mcebo Dlamini told the Guardian that students – and especially black students – face a struggle to enter university, and do not have the money to pay for fee rises.
He said: “The reality of the matter is that in the country post-independence the black students have still been oppressed, we’re still marginalised, we struggle to get into universities … But we still get those distinctions and compete with those model C schools, the former apartheid schools.
“Now we are here, government and the universities are sidelining us,” he added, leading a 1,000-strong march through the city centre. “We are poor … We are calling for free education in our lifetime. Germany did it – we can do it.”