Cape Town, South Africa
A video made by White students that showed them humiliating Black university employees has prompted angry protests and criticism that racism remains entrenched in South Africa 14 years after the end of apartheid.
The video, which was made last year and surfaced Tuesday, features Black University of the Free State employees on their knees eating food that had been urinated on by White students.
University authorities said Wednesday they are launching a criminal probe. Two of the students involved left the university last year and the other two have now been barred from campus.
The university suspended all classes to allow emotions to calm after a tense morning of protests during which police used a stun grenade to disperse stone-throwing students. Five students were arrested and later released.
The university in the city of Bloemfontein is regarded as a bastion for Afrikaaners, who are often most closely linked with White apartheid rule. University authorities have been trying to implement more racial integration at campus hostels and it was anger at this policy that apparently prompted the video.
Filmed last year by students from the Reitz men’s residence, it depicts a mock initiation of five Black staff members into hostile activities and refers openly to the university’s diversity policy for campus residences.
