New website shows crime and violence in South Africa

Reuters:

South Africans outraged at high levels of violent crime launched a new Web site on Thursday dedicated to giving visitors "a preview of death and violence" in the country ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup.

The site, Crime Expo SA (www.crimexposouthafrica.co.za), will eventually feature graphic photos of murder victims provided by their families as well as a breakdown of bloody attacks by region, organizers said.

"South Africans, who were brutally murdered in the past, will return from their graves and via their families and friends tell the international community of their horror," the site said in its welcoming page on Thursday.

Plans for the Web site have ruffled feathers among officials seeking to build South Africa's brand ahead of the 2010 World Cup, with some warning that negative perceptions of security in the country could scare off potential visitors.

"We are concerned about the appropriateness of any information campaign that focuses only on the negatives and ignores the growing range of successes in the fight against crime," the International Marketing Council said in a statement.

Neil Watson, a Cape Town insurance broker who founded the site, said frightening off foreign tourists and their much needed dollars and pounds might be the only way to jolt South African officials into getting serious about crime.

"A decline in international tourists (including Soccer 2010 tourists) will serve as a warning to the South African leadership to clean up their act," Watson said in a statement on the site.

South African officials led by President Thabo Mbeki plan to launch the country's World Cup drive at the end of the current Cup competition in Germany on Sunday.

Watson said he already had 289 files of "gruesome data" on murdered South Africans which he would post on the site in coming days.

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, with rapes, murders and violent car hijackings regularly making headlines in the local press.

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