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Which criminals will the death penalty affect?

Sunday World recently asked readers to vote by SMSes to indicate if there should be a referendum on the death penalty.

Sunday World recently asked readers to vote by SMSes to indicate if there should be a referendum on the death penalty.

The results were: Yes 57percent, No 43percent. Does this make a referendum on the death penalty morally justifiable or defensible?

Readers should have been asked to motivate why they voted the way they did, especially those who voted yes. They should also have been asked which crimes or offences should be punishable by death.

If adultery, corruption, drug trafficking and peddling were listed as crimes or offences punishable by death, those who favour the death penalty would have changed their minds.

Most people who are calling for its reinstatement are themselves adulterous and corrupt and might once even have been involved in drug trafficking.

It is no secret that some members of liberation movements and SADF were involved in gunrunning and the proceeds were deposited in Swiss accounts. Some of them were also involved in drug smuggling for personal gain.

We can't harp on the death penalty when the criminals who killed Sam Mabe, Japhta Masemola, Muntu Myeza, Aboobaker Asvat, Hazel Crane, Rocks Dlamini, Chris Meela and many others have not or cannot be caught.

If criminals cannot be caught, who is going to be hanged?

Sam Ditshego, Kagiso

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