An interim interdict prohibiting rape protesters at Rhodes University from unlawful behaviour‚ including intimidating‚ kidnapping and assaulting others‚ was dismissed almost in its entirety yesterday, says a TimesLIVE report. The Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) confirmed the interdict‚ in an abridged form‚ against only three named students‚ Sian Ferguson‚ Yolanda Dyantyi and Simamkele Heleni.

While Judge Murray Lowe found the university had suffered some infringement of its rights and that it had shown a reasonable apprehension that in the absence of an interdict this would continue‚ he said its identification of those groups responsible had been absurdly wide. He ruled that defining the respondents as ‘students engaging in unlawful activities’ on its campus and ‘those persons engaging in or associating themselves with unlawful activities’ was just too broad and did not constitute an identifiable group. ‘A court does not grant relief in circumstances where there is reasonable uncertainty about what that order means‚ or to whom it applies.’

He said the relief sought was also too wide. However, Lowe said that the kidnappings‚ the barricading of roads and destruction of university property were unlawful activities beyond the protection of the Constitution. He said as the university had shown that the three women had been involved in some unlawful conduct‚ the university was entitled to a final interdict against them.

Full TimesLIVE report