South African Police probe controversial Facebook photo figure
August 29th, 2011 - 7:21 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattJohannesburg, Aug 29 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The South African police are hunting for a person who posted a disturbing picture of a white man dressed like a hunter on the side of what seems like a dead black child on Facebook. The picture has been received with anger in the country where racial segregation is still a problem despite the fact that apartheid was officially abolished several years ago.
In the picture, the white man, looking to be in his late twenties to early thirties kneels beside the apparent lifeless body of the child with a rifle in his hands. Smiling as he took the picture, the man looks straight into the camera.
The South African police say there is no evidence that the picture is not authentic. The picture was uploaded on the famous social networking site on the 24th of June 2010 by a user identified on Facebook as Eugene Terrorblanche. It has taken the authorities more than a year to get to know about the picture because most of the users who saw the image did not raise any issue with it. The account has 590 friends on Facebook.
The picture has been criticized by several people because of the message that it sends.
Miranda Jordan of Women + Men Against Child Abuse said that, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing … this is sickening and disgusting. Is this child hurt? Is he dead? Who would take this kind of picture? This hate image incites racism that almost all South Africans have fought so hard to eradicate.”
The police have asked for assistance to identify and track the man in the picture.
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Tags: anger, apartheid, authorities, child abuse, facebook, johannesburg, jordan, lifeless body, miranda, photo, police probe, racial segregation, racism, social networking site, south african police, south africans, thirties, white man, women men