Stop lecturing protesting students on what to do - Mpofu

Johannesburg - Those claiming to support the call for free education must stop lecturing students, Advocate Dali Mpofu told students on Tuesday.

"All of us who claim to support the call for free education must find a space to support your struggle without directing if you must go right or you must go left, but to make sure that our people are not killed - to make sure that the talk of another Marikana we heard from the vice chancellor is not going to happen," the EFF national chairperson told a gathering of students.

Mpofu was speaking to students at the University of the Witwatersrand after police fired stun grenades and arrested two students earlier on Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of students marched to a number of faculty buildings around the university's main campus in Braamfontein, mobilising students to join the protests.

Mpofu said he was gathering a forum of lawyers who "are going to intervene, not just here, but across the country".

"I'm attending a meeting of former student leaders. I was the president of the black student society in 1985 and 1986 and we were doing the exact same thing against the apartheid regime and we would have not wanted anybody to come here and lecture us on how we may conduct our struggle."

Shortly after Mpofu spoke, some parents, students, lecturers and local celebrities began marching towards the Empire Street entrance, but were met by a heavy police contingent who fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd.

This article first appeared on News24.