Death penalty will cause a world war
DEATH penalty states are always in the news for the wrong reasons. Turkey, China and our little neighbour Botswana still fervently believe in this scourge already causing havoc all over the world.
Firstly, two Botswana academics recently “advised” South Africa to do what they do there: shoot and kill poachers. They further criticise us for not enforcing our country’s notorious Section 49 law more harshly. This law empowers policemen to do exactly that.
They go yet another step further by suggesting that the Kruger National Park be declared a “war zone”, making it even easier for law enforcers to kill even more people.
Where will this end? Farms being declared war zones to stop farm murders? Then gang-infested areas? Thereafter the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands? Our inner cities, plagued by rising crime? The taxi killers and armed robbers? Contract murderers? The list is endless.
Will these out-of-hand counterkillings stop the rot? Of course not.
Secondly, Turkey’s despotic President Erdogan has again stressed that he would, “without hesitation, approve the death penalty” if their parliament voted to bring it back.
Turkey has been trying for almost six decades to gain membership of the EU. Such a disastrous move would finally end their bid to join the EU because all 28 member states first had to abolish the death penalty in its entirety.
New members should also do so first. None of its members may extradite anyone to a country where that person may face the death penalty.
The Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is still languishing in a Turkish jail, having been sentenced to death decades ago.
Our own former president Nelson Mandela and the late Judge Essa Moosa tried in vain to have him freed.
Lastly, a political prisoner, Liu Xiaobo, died in a jail of the world’s second-biggest bully, China, after lengthy, inhumane incarceration, mostly in solitary confinement. His widow remains under house arrest.
These are some of the things folks in our country choose to ignore when they call for the reinstatement of this vile form of punishment which, because it is a violent act by itself, will ultimately plunge the world into an all-consuming third world war. Koert Meyer Welgelegen