This is just a comment (and I hope it is taken constructively) on your “top story”—POLICE CLAMP DOWN ON JOGGERS (Nov 3) and “PUBLIC LEADERS EXTOL SP’S CLAMPDOWN ON NIGHT JOGGERS” (Nov 4).
First, the publication of the photos of the kids (yes kids!) on your website (and, I imagine, on your newspaper) was very insensitive and will turn out to be critically damaging on their psyche.
The last thing they needed was a glaring exposure that made them look like prized-winnings of a hunting expedition, with an equally scandalous story to go with it. A responsible paper like yours could have been more careful before publishing photos of kids involved in such unfortunate activities and situations.
Second, I hope our “public leaders” (those in the governmental, religious, and citizen sectors) realize that this story is an indictment of us all—not just those boys and girls and their parents. And it is to our collective shame that such a situation has arisen in our society and that police force has had to be used to deal with it (assuming and hoping that police force was the last resort and that the police are not just focusing on “soft targets” to assuage their conscience for allowing many hard core criminals remain scot-free).
It will do us all well to realize that the “arrest” of these boys and girls, “caught red-handed while indulging in ‘immoral’ activities,” is not something to be applauded and celebrated by the public. It is to be mourned and wept over.
Where were we all along? All of us, including
Kethoser Kevichusa
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