Riot

Months Of at least superficial peace and quiet at the University College of Rhodesia were shattered on the morning of August 11 when some 200 students staged a demonstration in downtown Salisbury.

The students were protesting a restriction order served the day before on the President of the University Representative Council (URC), Michael Holman.

About one third of the students were white and the others were African or Asian. They brandished placards reading "Release Holman," "Down with Fascism." and "Reign of Terror—Rhodesia 1962-67."

Public gatherings with even the slightest political connotations have been banned under the Emergency Powers Act passed the week before the Ian Smith Government declared Rhodesia's unilateral independence in 1965. But the police chose to exercise restraint and made no effort to remove the demonstrators when they sat down in the gardens in the centre of Cecil Square.

When the students began marching towards the Rhodesian Parliament, the police intervened to disperse them with the help of clubs and dogs. Seven students were arrested.

The 21-year-old student leader is awaiting sentencing on a contempt of court charge resulting from the publication last April of a poem in the University magazine, Black and White, of which he was editor. The poem, called "In Honor of Brother Lewis and His Colleagues," makes satirical reference to High Court Judge John Lewis.

Holman had appeared in court two weeks before when the prosecution charged that the poem "violated the dignity and respect of the High Court judge." He has now been restricted to the town of Gwelo, about 200 miles from Salisbury.