Daily News Correspondents & Sapa
A policeman who investigated a man posing for a picture with an ostensibly dead child found the supposed hunter had paid the child to pose for it.
This was disclosed yesterday by Hawks spokesman, McIntosh Polela, who said a colleague probed the photograph, which showed a man in a pose typical of hunting trophy photographs, in 2007.
“We will look at the (investigator’s) report and then we will take a decision on whether to go ahead with the investigation,” Polela said.
“Even though there was an investigation into the matter, the fact that someone is still using that image on a social networking site is disturbing.”
The picture appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times yesterday, causing outrage at what was viewed as a racist atrocity. The image features on a Facebook profile of a user styled “Eugene Terrorblanche”, a play on the name of the murdered Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader.
Eyewitness News radio reporter Mandy Wiener of Gauteng’s Radio 702 tweeted yesterday that the story and the image had been published in 2008, while others asked why the Sunday Times had published it years after the picture had been taken.
According to a Mail & Guardian report three years ago, the picture had also appeared on a racist website started by a group of students from the University of North West.
In November 2008, the university took disciplinary action against seven of the 13 students who were identified as being part of the group with one student being expelled.
On his profile, “Terrorblanche” listed knifes, firearms and weapons as his interests, and self-defence, close combat fighting, weapons training and shooting as his activities.
Just hours after the story hit the streets yesterday Twitter came alive with comments from people pointing out that the picture has been in circulation for at least a decade and widely written about in 2008.
Yesterday’s article in the Sunday Times quoted the Hawks and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s office saying that an “immediate investigation” had been launched to track down the man in the picture.
Yesterday, Mthethwa’s spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, who was quoted in the story said the first time he had seen the picture was when the Sunday Times showed it to him, adding that he did not know that the picture had been in circulation.
“That picture was shown to us late on Saturday by the journalist who sent us the link. We commented on the story based on what we saw. I am not sure if that child in the picture was alive or if that picture was staged. I could not turn a blind eye and say no comment,” he said.
In addition to 702 reporting the issue in 2008, the Mail and Guardian online carried a piece on it too.
“Quite surprised by Sunday Times lead story re Facebook racism. I did the story for EWN (Eyewitness News) several years ago and it was well known then,” Weinter tweeted.
Sunday Times editor Ray Hartley said in a tweet : “Our story is about an extremely racist image being published on Facebook now, in 2011. We must find the person who published this image.”