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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Preacher washes children’s feet to apologise for South African child abuse
16:04 | 
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A Stuijt |
530 children a day are raped in South Africa – so a dominee apologised to all the children by washing their feet…
June 7 2009. Beeld newspaper journalist Cobus Coetzee reports that Afrikaner Dutch-reformed reverend Jannie Pelser of Krugersdorp kneeled down in front of the children in his congregation and carefully washed their feet with warm water after a fiery sermon on Sunday in which he also screened a CD, showing the massive child-abuse problem in South Africa. He admonished the parents to never remain silent about child-abuse wherever they spotted it – and “to think before yelling at their children... “
Dominee Pelser, shown in this photograph by Beeld photographer Bongiwe Gumede, said he was washing the feet of these children in a symbolic gesture to apologise to all the children of South Africa for the widespread abuse they now have to face so often.
The CD he screened was provided by the Helping Hand Charity organisation, highlighting the shock-finding from its own countrywide investigation showing that 530 children a day have to suffer the horrors of rape in South Africa. see The SA Police Service receives ‘only’ a daily 60 formal notifications of child-rapes each day - however child-health experts and social workers who were interviewed by Helping Hand’s researchers said more than 88% of all the child-rape cases are not even notified to the police at all.
530 children a day raped in South Africa:
"This means that in reality, about 530 children are raped each day in South Africa, one rape every three minutes,' said Dr Danie Langner when introducing the charity's report at the Imax Theatre on 4 June in Pretoria. The report noted that child murder has increased by 22,4% since 2006 in South Africa. "In 2007/08, 1,410 murders of children were reported to the SAPS, 22,4% more than the previous year." The CD can be ordered from the charity: click here for details
Dr Langner warned in this report, left, that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem of crime against children in South Africa. He for instance also described the living hell which empoverished, badly underfed Afrikaans murder victim Sheldean Human, 6, had lived during her short life before she was kidnapped from the commune she lived in with her mother, was raped, murdered and then her little body was carelessly discarded on 4 June last year.
The study found that children are increasingly exposed to sexual abuse, crime and prostitution, and also emphasized that detailed, reliable statistics about the problem were virtually unobtainable. The charity obtained their facts by countrywide interviews with hundreds of experts in the field – real stories of people who work with broken children every day. “It is a study born from the hearts of experts and children,” he said when introducing the shock-report on June 4. http://www.kindermisdaad.co.za
“Most difficult message to the suffering children of South Africa”
Reverend Pelser took this report very much to his heart, he told his listeners in the jam-packed church: “This is the most difficult message I am bringing today to the children of South Africa, but alas, God will be uncomfortably close to you in these difficult times.’
Each child in the congregation sat down at the front of the church so that Dominee Pelser could wash their feet with warm water and then dry them off with a sparkling-white towel. Pictured are Danie Müller (13) and Daniela Erasmus (11).
“Do not ever remain silent about child-abuse’
Reverend Pelser urged his congregation to above all, ‘not ever remain silent whenever children are abused and maltreated. Children are gifts from God and thus cannot be so carelessly discarded,’ he warned.
- He showed during his CD-screening with his computer exactly how defenceless tje children often are, how frequently they are being abused in South Africa --- but also how parents, the church, teachers, the news media and the government do not do nearly enough to try and protect the country’s next generation from these traumatic events.
“Even the country’s top child-protection detective, police director Piet Bylevard, says that there’s a big problem, that parents aren’t interested in their children any longer,’ he warned. “Children need structure,’ he said in his fiery sermon. “Before you yell unnecessarily at your kids, think first, and always realise that they are God’s gifts to us.’ He said parents often thus are ‘robbing their children of their future.” He warned that the church itself ‘can also be a poor role-model.’
He also asked the Afrikaans parents “not to send their children overseas, ‘because South Africa needs them.’ After this hard-hitting, deeply emotional sermon, each of the children received a sweet at the door before they left with their freshly-washed feet.
Also, our previous report on the child abuse problem in South Africa: http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/06/one-child-raped-every-3-minutes-in.html
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Western Cape: anti-child abuse march
April 29 2009 - Western Cape province police commissioner Mzwandile Petros, second left, with the actors of the popular TV-programme “Sewende Laan, participated in the 4-km long march against child abuse in Delft, near Cape Town. The actors are Nico 'Panagio (with cap and grey tracksuit, who plays the character George in the programme) and his wife, Christi , who plays 'Karien' . Picture: SA Police Service Captain Piet Smit. However it wasn’t presented as a ‘protest action’ but with the politically more correct term of “an awareness action’. Police commander Petros says that of the 700 child-abuse cases that were reported thus far this year, more than 200 are from the Western Cape. "There were 120 from Mitchells' Plain, an indication that there is a problem... In most of these cases the perpertrators were intoxicated when this happened."Please report crime to Crime-Line number 32211”.
Political heavyweights to high-profile actors, radio personalities and the police's top brass all joined the gigantic Anti-Child Abuse March in Delft, near Cape Town, South Africa. South African TV actors such as 'George' and 'Karien' of Sewende Laan TV programme; Cape Talk 567 Radio's Solly Philander and Western Cape Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros got down to some hard work when they joined the 4 km march.
Out-going Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille – whose Democratic Alliance party has won the majority of votes in the Western Cape province on April 22; present premier Lynne Brown also all joined the 4 km march and exhorted the Delft community to help combat incidents of child and woman abuse and report these crimes either to Primedia's Crime-Line (SMS 's) on 32211 or the Delft Police.
- They used a strong sound system perched atop a double-decker bus to address residents in the various areas of Delft.
Hundreds of people joined the march which snaked through most of Delft's crime hotspots in perfect weather conditions on Monday, 27 April 2009.
The event was organised by 567 Cape Talk Radio in Cape Townm, whose staff made it clear that the march was not a protest but ‘an awareness action’… whatever.
Chants of "Stop Child Abuse, Yes You Can !" echoed through the town - blurted out repeatedly by the marchers. They also used whistles to good effect to indicate that residents must blow the whistle on crime.
Community-based organisations such as Missing Children South Africa headed by Pieter Boschoff in Cape Town, Concerned Parents of Missing Children (CPMC) based in Mitchells' Plain and led by Michael and Michelle Ohlsen, Molo Songololo and child rights activist Greg Jonathan all attended the march, as did local Delft child-rights activist Gadija Francis.
Also noted at the front of the march procession, holding one side of the banner, was Vernon Norton, grandfather of the tragically slain child Jordan-Leigh. The murder of this six-year-old hit national and international media headlines between 2005 and 2007, finally ending in the conviction of murderer Dina Rodriques, who was sent to jail for life. Ephraim Abrahams, father of murdered three-year-old Celine Cowley, also carried her portrait in the front of the march.
- Her tiny body was found buried in a neighbour's backyard in May 2006.
A large police contingent, with Delft Police Station Commissioner Snr Supt Basil Vellai, supt Cedric Hermanus of the visible-policing unit, Capt Joe Wilson of the communications department, and the commander of the Delft policing region, Dir Dottie Adonis also took part in the march.
- South Africa has been struck by an epidemic of child abuse, child rapes and murders, and it has been particularly virulent in this sprawling Cape Flats area near Cape Town.
Addressing the huge crowd, Mr Abramjee said: "Our people are living in fear. Its time that we re-claim our streets.
"How long will we allow this? No, enough is enough ! We have to support the police.
- "So far our Crime-Line helped to arrest 732 suspects and stolen goods worth R29,8m were recovered.
"Use your fingers to make a difference. SMS child and woman abuse, rapes and other crimes to Primedia's Crime Line on 32211 to make a difference."
Drunken rapists and murderers of children:
In his address, Comm Petros said: "Of the 700 cases that were reported, more than 200 are from the Western Cape.
"There were 120 from Mitchells' Plain, an indication that there is a problem... In most of these cases the perpertrators were intoxicated when this happened."
Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance and the Western Cape Provincial premier, said: "We are here for one major reason, and that is to say enough is enough. Drug and substance abuse have become our biggest social crisis...”
Media contact: Superintendent N. Joseph tel. (021) 4177358, cellphone: 082 777 6004 http://www.sapsjournalonline.gov.za/dynamic/journal_dynamic.aspx?pageid=414&jid=15020
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Scruffy Ellis Park needs an upgrade: UK rugby journo
Jun 7 2009 Beeld journalist Carla van Niekerk writes that the management of the Ellis Park stadium (now renamed to Coca-Cola Park) are deeply upset about the comment by the venerated UK Sunday Times rugby-correspondent Stephen Jones’ description of the stadium as a ‘scruffy place’ which ‘needs an urgent upgrade’.
Jones, who is one of the Sunday Times’ most experienced sports writers, writing on http://www.timesonline.co.uk, made the comments on Wednesday last week while touring the stadium after the games between the British and Irish Lions and the Golden Lions. The stadium was only recently upgraded to ready it for the FIFA 2010 World Cup Football tournaments.
‘Away with Coca Cola Park, welcome back dear old Ellis…’
The guy was clearly out of sorts about the name change, writing: “You never know whether you are in South Africa or New Zealand at the moment because all the grand old stadiums in both cities have sprouted sponsors' names and all the names redolent with history have been abandoned… Good news dear readers. We will not be confusing you in these next few weeks. You will be hearing from me all about Ellis Park in Johannesburg and Loftus Versveld in Pretoria, and all the other stadiums with historic names. We stand for a sense of history here and we are definitely against arriving at completely the wrong stadium. Away with Coca-Cola Park and welcome back dear old Ellis…”
“It was haunting to be back in the place where Nelson Mandela danced and where the Boeing 747 dove across the stadium during the 1995 World Cup, but it urgently needs improvement,’
Johannesburg not for faint-hearted:
“Johannesburg is no place for faint hearts. Even in the relative safety of the Sandton suburb, it is always best to check that your passage on foot towards, say, an area of restaurants or shops along the road, does not take you through a no-go area. Mr Mick Cleary, apparently a journalist on something called The Daily Telegraph, was relieved of his laptop and allied items in Sandton during the 1995 World Cup.
- “Not that I was in any danger, taking the air this morning. I was in the company of Mr Paul Ackford who apparently writes for something called The Sunday Telegraph. Ackford's shorts are so ludicrous that anyone intent on doing harm to us or our property would have died laughing as they approached us. “…
The chief executive of the Ellis Park World of Sport, who manage the stadium, said “Jones’ comments lacked perspective and made me unhappy.’ He said the stadium still was a work in progress because the British Lions’ tour and the Confederation Cup football tournament both take place there this month. “And they overlap’.
He said they had to rush to make all the changes, covering up sponsors’ names etc. before June 14’s opening ceremony. These changes include adding a media centre, interview rooms and FIFA-offices. The last rugby game of the Lions ‘tournament is played on 4 July.
Click here to read this week's Rolling Maul by Stephen Jones
African vultures threatened by witchdoctor culture
June 8 2009 - The African continent’s vulture flocks are increasingly ending up in the cooking pots of witchdoctors – ‘traditional healers’ – who make ‘medicine’ from the beautiful birds in the belief that they help improve people’s eyesight.
A huge number of vultures are being killed throughout Africa for ‘muti’, (traditional medicine), said Andre Botha, manager of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Birds of Prey Working Group.
“In East Africa, the birds’ heads and claws are harvested for the manufacture of ‘medicine’, while the rest of the carcass is usually thrown away. However in West Africa, a new trend is developing: people have also started eating vultures – which may also be due to internal conflicts and food-deprivation.”
He said a worrying aspect of this is that many Africans from East and West Africa now also are streaming across South Africa’s nearly unguarded borders – increasing the demand for vulture flesh. “There’s a new belief now, they also claim that products made from vultures improve children’s grades at school,’ he said. “In the past, the claim was made that vulture products could give them super-sharp, long-distance vision.’
He says there’s no scientific proof that this is the case at all – but people believe it anyway. An Africa-conference is being planned next year to raise international awareness of this problem.
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sources:
Andre Botha, Manager: EWT Birds of Prey Working Group
Tel: 082-962-5725
Fax: 011-486-1506
e-mail: andreb@ewt.org.za
Please report any ‘road-kills’ or of you know of any wildlife which is under immediate threat, to the trust via their website: https://www.ewt.org.za/news_fullstory.aspx?newsID=486http://www.african-safari-pictures.com/vulture-pictures.html
Witchcraft culture in Africa:
Dutch invent world’s first bio-degradable toilet paper
June 8 2009 – SWALMEN, LIMBURG, The Netherlands. A small Dutch family-owned paper company has just started marketing the world’s first bio-degradable toilet paper and paper towels. And after the US consumer agency MBDC, (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry*) awarded the Van Houtum company its ‘cradle-to-cradle certification, (C2C) ’ they are now very keen to market its biodegradable Satino Eco paper products worldwide. It’s also cheaper than other toilet paper, which should make it very attractive for the current market conditions, the company believes.
The company’s ‘green toilet paper’ has already been adopted enthusiastically by the province’s administration, said Director Henk van Houtum.
The company employs 200 workers, with an annual 60-million Euro production.
Developing the ‘green toilet paper’ took two years and 500,000 Euros in ‘innovation subsidies’ from the European Union and the Limburg provincial administration.
Van Houtum also manufactures bio-degradable paper napkins – and eventually they intend to turn all their paper products ‘green’, depending on the market response. They are clearly labelled with “Eco’ to indicate the products ability to be reabsorbed into the environment without any chemical harm.
Van Houtum, left in the picture while presenting his new product to the news media, said the company already uses recycled paper – but developed a new paper in which all the harmful chemicals have also been removed from the production processes. And those chemicals which were used, are clean and bio-degradable, he said.
What is Cradle-to-Cradle Certification (C2C) ?
These certificates are issued by the firm McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry in Charlottesville, Virginia, a product and process design firm dedicated to transforming the design of products, processes, and services worldwide. Basically, they want to keep products off dump sites and turn them into goods which can be ‘perpetually circulated in closed loops’.
The firm was founded in 1995 by William McDonough and Michael Braungart to promote and power "the Next Industrial Revolution" through intelligent design. They employ so-named Cradle to Cradle Design using strategies which they call "eco-effective" to create products and systems that contribute to economic, social, and environmental prosperity of the planet.
MBDC is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and also collaborates on projects with Michael Braungart's firm EPEA in Hamburg, Germany, which has been developing key strategies for material intelligence for fifteen years:. http://www.mbdc.com/c2c_home.htm
Van Houtem Paper company, The Netherlands:
- http://www.vanhoutumpapier.com/Default.aspx?page=2
- Tel.: +31 (0)475 507 300
Fax: +31 (0)475 507 301
E-mail: info@satino.com
“White people are devils…’
Former Your Black Muslim bakery leader accused of saying ‘white people are devils’ after killing Michael J Wills Jr is not being charged with a racist hate crime…
Picture: Murder victim Michael J. Wills Jr.
May 28 2009 – Journalists Josh Richman and Thomas Peele of The Chauncey Bailey Project have been running a long-term investigation on the death of black journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men, allegedly by leading members of the Your Black Muslim Bakery group. They revealed during their investigation that evidence was presented proving that one of their victims, a white passerby named Michael Wills Jr., was killed only because he was white. The journalists ask why these accused black muslims weren’t also being charged with a hate crime? More on this subject at http://www.chaunceybaileyproject.org/
They write: “The July 2007 slaying of Michael Wills, in which two members of Your Black Muslim Bakery have been charged, was tinged with racial overtones, yet those men aren’t charged with a hate crime. Friends and relatives of Wills, who was white, are concerned that prosecutors haven’t done all they can against defendants Yusuf Bey IV — the last leader of the now-defunct bakery — and Antoine Mackey, one of Bey’s followers charged with pulling an assault rifle’s trigger to end Wills’ life.
“But experts say hate-crime cases are particularly difficult to prove and, in this case, would not bring added potential penalties beyond what the defendants already face.
- ‘He seen the white dude walking down the path… then he shot him…’
- “Devaughndre Broussard, another Bey IV follower who has admitted to killing journalist Chauncey Bailey, told a prosecutor in March that Bey IV and Mackey bragged they killed Wills because of his race. The two saw him walking in North Oakland as they were discussing a string of racially motivated murders in the 1970s known as the Zebra killings.”
“White people are devils…”
“They was laughing about and joking about,” Broussard said of Bey IV and Mackey. Mackey “said he seen the white dude walking down the path … then he shot him,” Broussard added. Bey IV later said, “‘We got a devil. White people are devils,’” according to Broussard’s statement.
- Then Broussard said Bey IV talked about “a devil mentality. A black man can be a devil if he’s against his people.”
“Bey IV and his late father, bakery founder Yusuf Bey, have often, while preaching, referred to white people as “devils.” And in telephone calls recorded from the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and obtained by the Chauncey Bailey Project, Bey IV often made similar statements, referring to “white and Jew devils” and “media devils” whom he claims are trying to destroy him.
Referring to whites as “devils” was among the early teachings of Nation of Islam founders W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad.
Although the elder Bey broke away from the organization to run what was in effect his own Black Muslim sect, he remained largely a follower of Elijah Muhammad.
Patrick Wills, the victim’s younger brother, said his brother’s family and friends “pretty much all feel the same. Everybody knows the only reason (Michael Wills) was shot was because he was white. So I don’t see any reason why that (hate crime enhancement) should not be part of the charges. For it to not to be there is horrible.”
Read much more on the website: http://www.chaunceybaileyproject.org/