SABC News reports that the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has threatened to embark on mass mobilisation if students arrested during the FeesMustFall protests are not unconditionally released and the charges against them dropped.  

Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said the union was shocked and disgusted that so many students were still being detained.  She noted that some have been convicted for standing up for their rights to free higher education that the ANC government promised them for more than two decades.  She commented further as follows:  “The so called free education that these students fought so hard for has turned out to be nothing else than an empty pipe dream.  What has made it worse is that the ANC government has deliberately taken a decision not to nationalise the land and the mineral wealth.  If we had nationalised it like other Nordic countries we would actually have the money and the resources to fund free higher education.  Instead of the model that the government is using now to punish the working class by forcing them to pay for this education through increased taxation”.

• This short report by Jamaine Krige is at SABC News
• Read too, FeesMustFall protesters locked out of Union Buildings, at The Citizen

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page