Newsreal: Fighting street crime — on the Internet

Wed, 04 Jun 1997 19:00:00 +0000

the No. 1 Web site in South Africa is not about the beautiful countryside, the miraculous overthrow of apartheid or the glory of Nelson Mandela. It's about "a brutal act of violence" that has left its white victim "battling to breathe." The site has been up for just a month but it already brims with thousands of responses to "Share Your Tragedy" and "Suggestions." "Messages of Support" have poured in from across the world.

"We just wanted our friends from all over the country to leave their own get well messages," said Irnest Kaplan, who found his elder brother Rob, 34, near death in his Johannesburg home on May 1. Rob, who ran a computer training center for blacks, had been shot twice in the chest, stabbed, beaten, pistol-whipped and tortured for hours with a household heating iron by three Zulu-speaking robbers seeking the keys to a nonexistent safe.

"Our intention now," said Irnest, who works for The Internet Solution, one of South Africa's largest Web development and server companies, "is to have a meeting with Mr. Mandela, show him the responses and demand radical action ... We hope to leverage the Internet."

Salon.com > Alan Brody

Newsreal: Fighting street crime — on the Internet