Everyday we wake up only to hear a new salacious story. The new talk of the town these days concerns some controversial pictures of Michaela Hart which were published in the Sunday Times, a Mauritian newspaper. The contentious pictures which provoked worldwide consternation (Apparently worldwide but it seems to be so in North Ireland only..bah!) showed part of the body of this young lady shortly after her death.
The editor of the Sunday Times was arrested and questioned by the CID’s investigators. He is still in police custody since Wednesday 18th July. A provisional charge of “Outrage to Public Morality” is hanging over him. While it is 100% legal to publish those photos, when it comes to ethics, the words are of another color. But then sticking a man in jail for days because his newspaper has published some crime scene photos is pure “ass licking strategy” to please Ireland and the Harte family.
Sunday Times Director
The lawyers of Avinash Treebhowon and Sandip Moneea , deny the accusation of the Prime Minister as being responsible for the leakage. If not them, who? Another case of corruption in the police force? This will not be a surprise…
A whole nation was shocked by the awful murder of Michaela Harts and a whole country would like justice to be made at all cost. We are all tired of reading about how barbarous or backward the Mauritian society is. We are all fed up of enjoying such a notorious reputation worldwide.
We certainly would like to be able to rise up from the mud we were thrown in because of some unscrupulous individuals who do not hesitate to kill or to publish unethical pictures for God knows what reasons.
I would like to stress here on the word “individual”. It is not 1,286,051 Mauritians who killed this woman. It is not the whole population of Mauritius who were inefficient in handling this case. It is also not the whole of us who decided to publish those pictures in order to make profit out of this regretful situation. People should understand once for all that if some people are corrupted here in Mauritius, we can’t blame a whole nation.
But unfortunately, it seems that many people are not taking these factors into consideration. “Boycott Mauritian” is their new motto. An Irish member of the parliament said that “No Irish should go to Mauritius until justice is done“. If justice is never done, should we still be labelled as savages and stigmatised till the end of times? Well lick my arse! If for this reason people need to Boycott Mauritius, then Ireland is no heaven clone. So is no other country of the world. The country has its own set of crime and murders which are yet to be solved. So let’s follow the same trend: Boycott Ireland! Right? Will this be right?
What is more saddening is that even some Mauritians are helping to rub salt on our wounds. On the Facebook’s page “ Boycott Mauritius” it is a pity to see how many of our people are posting generalised comments about how Mauritians are corrupted, barbarous and lagging behind in so many ways. Instead of finding ways to patch up our tattered reputation, some people are only destroying it even more.
Typic mentalite certain Mauricien, critik tou seki concern so pay ek prend liem pli european ki european la.
Can we blame all Germans for Hitler’s crimes? Can we blame all the Afghans for Bin Laden’s wrong deeds? The examples overflow of how one man can bring a whole nation to its downfall. But we should not forget that crimes and offences like those we are witnessing in Mauritius nowadays occur all around the world.
Even some Irish papers are condemning the call for Mauritius boycott. Mary Regan, from the Irish Examiner described in her article how blaming the whole Mauritian nation is unfair. The Irish Times, published an article titled “Who are we to lecture people of Mauritius about justice?” pointing to the Irish own shortcomings.
And yea: Those same people out there pretending to be holier than thou and critisizing Mauritius must know that Ireland is itself one of those European countries with the highest murder rate!
Boycotting Mauritius will not bring this young lady back and will certainly not help to solve this case. Damaging the reputation of a whole country which relies so much on the tourism industry for its survival also won’t help.
What we certainly help is to realise that we are human beings. We will make mistakes and sometimes irreversible one and only those who commit them should bear the consequences…