South Africa police on friday fired teargas at opposition activists protesting against alleged racism at a Cape Town school where a whites-only year-end dance party was allegedly organised last month.
Anti-riot police aimed teargas and water cannon towards hundreds of members of the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party gathered near the Brackenfell High School in Cape Town on Friday during protests over a “whites–only” party that was reportedly organized in the school last month.
The protesters dispersed and re-grouped a few blocks away.
Police later told the protest organisers that only 100 people were allowed to march to the school.
The protests were the latest of a string of demonstrations against alleged racism at Brackenfell High School following a white only private party that held sometime late in October.
Few days after the private party, EFF members tried marching to the school but were blocked by some of the students’ parents resulting in fistfights.
Widely shared video footage showed dramatic scenes of angry whites punching EFF’s black protesters on the streets on November 9.
The confrontation disturbed President Cyril Ramaphosa who called for a probe, describing the clashes as “deeply regrettable”.
“The spectacle of parents and protestors coming to blows at the school gate is deeply unfortunate,” said Ramaphosa, adding the development brought “back hurtful memories of a past we should never seek to return to”.
Despite the end of apartheid a generation ago, racial tensions in South Africa often remain high.
“The masked ball which held sometime in October was a private party organised by the parents… and did not fall under the control of the school,” the school authorities said in a letter to parents sent on Sunday.
They added that only 42 of the school’s 254 graduating students attended and that Brackenfell High does not “condone or accommodate any events that are exclusively reserved for certain groups”.
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