Students marched on Durban’s City Hall on Friday morning to demand the immediate release of jailed student activist Bonginkosi Khanyile.

Close to 100 people marched through the central business district. A memorandum of their demands was handed to a representative of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

They called for:

* Khanyile’s immediate release and registered their dissatisfaction with his continued detention;

 * The NPA to investigate allegations of “political influence” in denying him bail; and

 * The raft of criminal charges against him to be dropped.

“We demand the NPA stop opposing bail of Khanyile as we have viewed this act as an act of not acting on pursuit of justice but its just ridiculous emotions‚” they wrote.

Khanyile was arrested in September when Durban University of Technology students clashed with riot police at the height of fee free education protests.

He faces eight charges including assault‚ inciting violence and being in possession of explosives.

Video footage captured by police‚ which was entered into the record during his earlier application for bail‚ showed Khanyile using a slingshot to fire “objects” in the direction of riot police.

A Durban magistrate denied him bail‚ a decision which was upheld on appeal at the High Court in Pietermaritzburg.

Khanyile is expected to take his case to the Constitutional Court next week.