CALL FOR DEATH PENALTY IS HATE SPEECH
THE letter “Heart-rending killing of our beloved rhino leaves many unanswered questions” (The Star, September 11) in which the writer, Harry Sewlall, cannot resist invoking the death penalty, as if it has the capacity to reverse the current high levels of crime, including the maiming and poaching of animals, cannot go unchallenged.
Most humans are animal-lovers, and it hurts when we read of the unspeakable things some do to animals. However, our country has some of the harshest punishments for such crimes; in most cases people would be too scared to hurt animals as our courts will show no leniency.
This writer is a known lover of the death penalty. He is completely off his trolley in again reminding us that “Since we do not have the death penalty, we should be building prisons in the Kruger National Park”. How absurd.
The letter, like all those by lovers of the death penalty, is teeming with half-truths, distortions, exaggerations, over-emphasising, advancing facts selectively and even despicable name-calling. None of this is in any way helpful to fight this abomination.
The way he wants to deal with it is in stark contrast to the noble efforts of 12-year-old Hunter Mitchell of Somerset West. The boy was just as shocked as everybody else when he first heard of the poaching of rhinos. He started telling everybody and at the same time collecting funds to help in the fight. His efforts have already yielded more than R200 000, and is ongoing.
His parents accompanied him last year to receive a prestigious international award in Australia, something all of us were equally proud of.
We can all do something, however minute it might seem, to improve the lives of our fellow-men (and animals). What legacy will we be leaving behind?
The time has arrived for people who persistently long for the return of the death penalty to be called to book when the anti-hate speech bill becomes law. Welgelegen, Cape Town