Sowetan: More join call for boycott

MORE JOIN CALL FOR BOYCOTT
By Anna Majavu
Sowetan - Johannesburg - South Africa [29_09_10]

ANOTHER three prominent academics yesterday called on the University of Johannesburg to break ties with an Israeli university.

The vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, Saleem Badat, added his voice to 200 other prominent South African academics and authors who support the boycott.

Stellenbosch University professor of economics Sampie Terblanche and Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, came out in support yesterday.

Today UJ's senate will decide whether to cut ties with Ben Gurion University.

The call to cut ties with the university has drawn support from across the political spectrum. Apart from the 203 South African academics who joined the campaign, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Kader Asmal, Barney Pityana and authors Breyten Breytenbach and Antjie Krog have signed up.

Tutu said at the weekend that Palestinians were living under the same conditions as black South Africans under apartheid.

"My heart aches. I say, 'Why are our memories so short?' Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their own previous humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?" Tutu wrote in a Sunday paper.