The Congress of the People plans to raise recent attacks on Unisa vice chancellor Barney Pityana with Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, the party said on Sunday.

Cope spokesperson Phillip Dexter said the party's three-day national conference condemned the "ongoing purges of those identified as Cope members or sympathisers in government and other institutions".

"Cope is determined to defend these people as part of its commitment to defend our democracy... The ongoing thuggery, such as seen at Unisa directed against Dr Pityana, was condemned.

"Cope intends taking this issue up with the minister for higher education, who should be defending Dr Pityana, but who has been unusually silent on this issue."

Dexter said Pityana was not a member of the five-month-old party, but even if he were, it should not cost him his job.

There had been allegations that the ANC and its alliance partners were behind an attempt to get Pityana to resign from his post at the University of South Africa because of his affiliation with Cope.

The Young Communist League this month said Pityana was running the university "like a spaza shop", while members of the National Education and Allied Workers' Union marched to Unisa's Pretoria campus to demand his resignation.

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