AfriForum Youth offers to help UP with contingency plan after EFFSC threats

AfriForum Youth today sent a letter to Prof. Caroline Nicholson, registrar of the University of Pretoria (UP), to ask what the university’s contingency plan is for the so-called national shutdown on Monday 20 March, and to offer a contingency plan, which AfriForum’s division for Community Safety will draw up. This follows after the youth organisation was informed of threats distributed to students by the EFFSC UP (EFF student command of UP).

“Although AfriForum Youth, like the majority of South Africans, believes that the EFF’s bark is much worse than their bite, we have to act on behalf of our young people in the interest of their safety and academic obligations,” says René van der Vyver, spokesperson for AfriForum Youth.

Classes and semester tests will continue on 20 March on the UP campus, although the EFF is threatening a national shutdown, of which the impact by most South Africans is considered minor.

“AfriForum Youth’s Tuks branch takes the position that political parties should not disrupt universities’ academic programs just to try to score cheap political points. We are a mouthpiece for students and we as students say that we want to continue with our academic responsibilities,” says Maree van den Berg, Vice-Chairperson of the Tuks branch.

The Community Safety division of this civil rights organisation is ready to equip the UP with a contingency plan drawn up by safety specialists, so that it can be swiftly applied in the unlikely event of serious disruption.