UCT4PALESTINE occupies UCT campus space, wants management to disclose Israel ties
The protesters are calling on UCT and other universities to financially and academically boycott Israel, because of the war in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian land.
A student-led coalition of Palestinian resistance groups has occupied space at the University of Cape Town. Picture: Carlo Peterson/ Eyewitness News.
CAPE TOWN - UCT4PALESTINE, a student-led coalition of Palestinian resistance groups, has occupied space at the University of Cape Town (UCT) with an encampment.
A few protesters have pitched tents and are camping in front of UCT's Sarah Baartman Hall in solidarity with similar movements at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Stellenbosch, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and further afield - universities in the United States.
The protesters are calling on UCT and other universities to financially and academically boycott Israel, because of the war in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian land.
UCT4PALESTINE spokesperson, Laeeqa Pangarker, said they'd been camping out at UCT since Wednesday to commemorate the Nakba - Israel's initial displacement of Palestinian people on 15 May in 1948.
"It's not something that has ended and Palestinians are still affected to this day. So, inputting our goal of reaching Palestinian liberation in practice, we'd like to get UCT to disclose where the money goes."
Pangarker said that UCT4PALESTINE would be camping at the university for as long as they could sustain themselves.
"We'd like them to disclose all financial ties and eventually reach an academic boycott with respect to Israel and how they support Israeli universities.
UCT management said it has noted the encampment but had not received any formal correspondence from the group.