Rhodes University has come out guns blazing with a massive written and audio-visual court rebuttal to claims that no one was kidnapped, assaulted or intimidated in anti-rape protests this year.
Video and photographic evidence, along with over 30 affidavits from students and staff, provide shocking and frightening evidence of mobs kidnapping students and of them being assaulted and intimidated.
Details of the ordeal suffered by three male students – two who were anonymously accused of rape on social media – came out for the first time in papers submitted to the Grahamstown High Court this week.
The three were hauled out of bed in the night and held for hours while being slapped around, spat on, taunted, threatened and called rapists.
All three were so traumatised they abandoned their residences and now live in fear at undisclosed addresses.
Three student respondents and a staff group are fighting the university’s interim interdict prohibiting protesters from unlawful behaviour such as destroying property, kidnapping, assault, intimidation, or disrupting the academic project.
Student respondent Simamkele Heleni has strenuously denied under oath that any of the unlawful behaviour alleged by the Rhodes management – including vice-chancellor Dr Sizwe Mabizela, registrar Dr Steve Fourie and finance head Dr Ian L’ange – happened, adding the interdict is therefore unnecessary, too broad and has a chilling effect on debate and legitimate protest.
In reply to their almost blanket denial the university has produced reams of evidence of unlawful behaviour that the court will have to weigh up when deciding whether or not to make the interim interdict final.
Fourie accuses the three students – Heleni, Yolanda Dyantyi and Sian Ferguson – of perjury. He says the interdict is necessary because students engaged in a vigilante campaign of invading residences, kidnapping students and assaulting and intimidating all who stood in their way, including himself and Mabizela.
“On [their] version none of these unlawful activities occurred,” says Fourie. “They further deny any involvement in these activities.” The denials were “entirely untruthful”.
Photographs of barriers closing roads to campus, vandalised property, and Facebook posts of the three students encouraging academic shutdown are put up as evidence.
The matter was to be argued in court tomorrow but both sides have agreed to a postponement. The interdict is in place in the meantime.
