A prominent Zimbabwean journalist, Haru Mutasa, who works for the Qatari-based television network, Al Jazeera, has raised concerns about the high crime rate in South Africa.
Mutasa set the cat among the pigeons on Sunday night after she claimed that Zimbabwe was “the safer nation” of the two.
Posting on Twitter, Mutasa said Zimbabwe is beautiful and “does not have the high crime rate” seen in South Africa.
She also claimed that some South Africans “wrongly believe the rest of Africa is invading them”. Wrote Mutasa:
Ouch South Africans – there I said it… Compared to #Zimbabwe your crime is on another level… Fight me all you want, you know am right
But we still love you – our lovely neighbours across the border, who wrongly believe the rest of Africa is invading them… Oops – I said that…
Besides upsetting South African social media users, Mutasa’s tweet caught the attention of Clayson Monyela, the Head of Public Diplomacy at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO).
Monyela noted that Mutasa had no statistical evidence to support her claims and also suggested that Zimbabwean nationals are contributing to the high crime rate in South Africa. Said Monyela:
What are you saying Haru? I’ll be a good diplomat and resist the temptation to ask you to produce credible stats from Zimbabwe to back up this tweet.
I’ll also not ask if some of your nationals are contributing to the crime in SA. Do better!
More: The South African
South Africa is the land of criminals. High crime rate, high murder rate, high domestic violence rate, high feminine rate and their running around killing their own kith and kin. The Zim people own their land and 80% of the population live in stone houses not tin shacks like in South Africa. Any Zimbabwean who goes to South Africa to live in a shack is crazy
No question about it: South Africa has the worst crime rate in Africa; that country is just one big crime scene and their police force is totally responsible for that situation because many many cops, low and high ranking, are involved in crime. Harun is perfectly right.
Truth hurts
Zvakangofanana nemombe inotsamwira kuti yanzi imombe
Chinyika cheCRIME, Even iye Clayson Monyela knows kuti haasi SAFE. Handitsikiko keep your crime infested mini Sodomar and we keep our beautiful country ZIM
80 % of prison inmates in South african prisons are Zimbabwean how many have been caught with explosives at the border coming to bomb ATMS how many are arrested for Bank heist . .stealing tablets in clinics using different names then taking them to Zimbabwe to sell them. .ask yourselves why are the only foreigners hated most in South africa …. when they are so many foreigners… wait for 31 December when they are gonna for good if you will still say the same thing