Anti-crime website 'sabotaged'
Helen Bamford
July 22 2006 at 05:27PM
Cape Town insurance broker Neil Watson claims his controversial anti-crime website has been sabotaged. The site could not be visited for a period of time this week and a team of IT specialists were battling to figure out why.
Watson, a father of four, has also been getting death threats since the site went live on July 7.
He told Weekend Argus that he had received up to 10 calls a day from people who threatened him and his family.
"People say they want to murder me and rape my mother and sister.
"It is frightening but I believe so much in this cause that I'm willing to take risks and do whatever it takes." Watson has been branded an unpatriotic racist trying to damage his country but he remains unrepentant.
"I'm just exposing the truth about crime in this country. I'm not asking anyone to boycott the 2010 World Cup but they should know the facts before they come here."
The website is for victims of crime or their loved ones to publish their experiences so the international community can hear what is happening.
It also contains gruesome pictures of murder victims. Watson claims his site has received 22 500 hits since it started and had received such a massive inflow of e-mails, it already needed an upgrade.
"The grief on the website is pouring out," he said, "and I'm taking one call after another from people with stories to tell."
He also said he had letters from tour operators from as far afield as Sweden, Australia, the United States and China planning to cancel visits.
"I'll be opening a section on the website soon, showing their comments."
Tourism bodies, government and investment roleplayers earlier slammed the website, accusing Watson of frightening off foreign tourists and their much-needed currency.
But he hit back saying people deserved to know what was happening.
"The tourism authorities don't tell visitors that 20 000 people are murdered in this country every year, if not more."
He also dismissed allegations that crime was caused by poverty. "Let us stop blaming poor people. It's often not them who commit violent crime."
Watson said that he would only consider stopping his website when the murder rate dropped to less than 5 000 a year - not something likely to happen any time soon, he added.
http://www.iol.za.org/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3015&art_id=vn20060722084711844C109787
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