Graphic crime website 'very damaging'
July 07 2006 at 04:55AM
By Karen Breytenbach and Reuters
Investment, tourism, security and soccer roleplayers have slammed a website launched last week to give international tourists "a preview of death and violence" before the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa.
The site, Crime Expo SA, lets South Africans affected by crime post pictures of murder scenes and comments. It also features critical press statements and claims gruesome reasons for tourists not to visit the country.
Site author Neil Watson, an insurance broker in Cape Town, wrote: "Crime Expo SA aims to provide victims of violent crime, as well as friends and family of the slaughtered, with an opportunity to collectively register their anger and provide the world with a preview of violent SA."
Watson said frightening off foreign tourists and currency might be the only way to jolt the authorities into taking crime seriously.
Vernon Seymour, the South African Football Association provincial chairperson, said the site counteracted job creation by discouraging tourism and investment.
"When we were bidding, we were upfront about crime. Our security agencies have a plan and we're working closely together.
"We need foreign currency, investment, job creation. Crime is bred by poverty and desperation."
The International Marketing Council said: "We are concerned about the appropriateness of any information campaign that focuses only on the negatives and ignores the growing range of successes in the fight against crime."
Cape Town Tourism general manager Mariette du Toit said the website skewed the truth and was "very damaging".
Antoinette Louw, senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies' Crime and Justice Programme, said the website was indicative of mounting public fear and a feeling that the government was not listening.
"This comes at a time of lots of public discussion about crime. We find people (turn) to vigilantism as a last resort, because they feel they're not being heard. I don't think the website is constructive ... it dissuades job-creation, which is a solution to crime."
Nils Flaatten, of the Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency, said there were better ways to contribute to fighting crime than "scare-mongering".
"Patriotic hackers should shut down the site."
The website criticises MEC for Community Safety Charles Nqakula. His department said it was "not the responsibility or interest" of the MEC to comment.
http://www.iol.za.org/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20060707015837571C820421
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