Fair Treatment for Brandon Huntley

Posted on September 8th, 2009 by Richard Catto 2,392 views

The national debate that has been ignited in South Africa by Canada’s granting of asylum to Brandon Huntley has turned Huntley into a national pariah and seriously prejudiced his ability to lead a normal quiet life in South Africa, should he be forced to return here.

Investigative reporters from newspapers all over the world have probed every aspect of Huntley’s life, approaching his former neighbours in Mowbray, Cape Town, a suburb not far from where I live, downloading his image from his personal FaceBook page and pillaging his profile for dirt, talking to his estranged Canadian wife and even knocking on the door of his father’s Pringle Bay beach house just outside of Cape Town.

So far only one South African political organisation has stepped forward in Huntley’s defense – Afriforum. If you view the staff of Afriforum (here) it’s immediately clear that Afriforum is staffed by white Afrikaans speaking South Africans (aka Boers, as I have previously referred to them on this blog). However, I’m not going to discredit them based on who they are. It is clear that they represent a group of South Africans who believe that South Africa is not a safe place for their kind.

What is undisputed is the fact that Huntley was the victim of violent crime in South Africa and on more than one occasion. Much mileage has been made of the fact that he did not report those crimes to the police. Well that doesn’t make sense to me. I, myself, was stabbed during a mugging back in December 2000 and I did not bother reporting it to the police either because I rightfully believed that the police were not going to do anything about apprehending my muggers. The race of my muggers were Coloured. The South African Police Services are a joke, in my personal opinion, and it is shared by many who have dealt with them when they have fallen victim to crime. So, yeah, in South Africa many people see the SAPS as part of the problem not as “solution providers” and not using them is not an unusual thing to happen. In fact, I would say that many people avoid them.

The difference between myself and Huntley was that I didn’t decide to emigrate because of that mugging. I just made a lifestyle change and I have not experienced crime since then. It is possible to live in South Africa and experience very little or no crime.

What I do find outrageous is the media’s invasion into Huntley’s private life. The Star went and read which FaceBook groups Huntley was subscribed to and decided that because he was a member of some sexually promiscuous sounding groups that his marriage was a sham and that he only did it to get into Canada. His embarrassed wife is now harbouring the same doubts, but to point to a few FaceBook groups as evidence of that I find outrageous. FaceBook is a sick joke and most of those groups on there are as lame as shit. People add themselves to all kinds of groups and it doesn’t amount to a bag of beans.

To wrap all my thoughts up into a tidy conclusion, I think Brandon Huntley should be allowed to remain in Canada. Sending him back here after he has been turned into a national pariah would be most unfair. Secondly, South Africa needs to take note of groups like Afriforum and acknowledge that violent crime is a reality that many South Africans of all races experience and that the South African Police Services are still not being used by many crime victims because of the extremely bad reputation the SAPS still enjoys. SAPS is not an effective organisation. They do not apprehend criminals. They do not treat people humanely and fairly. They, as a police service, consistently fail the people they are supposed to serve. Their reputation takes regular knocks, when for instance they arrest people like Helen Zille, when she was former Mayor of Cape Town.

So this whole Huntley case is no longer about Canada’s “bad decision” to grant Huntley asylum. In fact, Canada can do whatever the hell they like. They can let whoever they like in and for whatever reason suits them and we don’t have to like it. This is now about South Africa and how many South Africans experience it. It’s time we swept our own porch clean and stopped yelling about what Canada is doing.

Additional reading:
About Huntley’s Canadian wife
Clear evidence that Huntley was a victim of violent crime
Afriforum’s support for Huntley
Melanie Huntley’s concern for her husband

Tags: Brandon Huntley
Filed under South Africa |

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