In a full-page newspaper advertisement, friends and family of slain Chinese newspaper editor Gino Feng have asked President Thabo Mbeki how many more people must die before he acts on crime.
”Bullet ripped his heart open. His wife and children had to watch him die whilst sitting in his blood,” reads the advertisement, placed in the Citizen under the headline, ”Announcement”.
”This was how Gino Feng died … when he tried to protect his family from intruding robbers. Gino’s life was ended by a spineless criminal as if his life had no significance whatsoever.”
A memorial service for Feng, who edited the China Express newspaper, will be held at the Chinese Christian Church in Edenvale at 9.30am on Saturday.
Feng (45) was shot in his left shoulder in an exchange of fire with four robbers he found in his home in Hurlyvale while investigating noises at 7pm on May 2.
At the time, police said that the robbers fled, but that one of them was found wounded at an adjoining house. Police found an unlicensed firearm in his possession.
He was taken to the Tembisa Hospital and later transferred to a hospital in Pretoria, where he died.
Feng was not the only victim of crime. ”There are too many horrible incidents to describe here, just too many,” his community said in the advertisement.
When any crime in South Africa was placed alongside the Constitution, it seemed to be ”of no greater value than the paper it is printed on”.
”We were not given any preferential treatment when we made South Africa our home.
”Many of us had to experience the meaning of the phrase ‘previously disadvantaged’. But when legislation was passed to empower the previously disadvantaged, we were simply left aside.”
Their money was as hard-earned as that of any other law-abiding and hard-working South African, but still they cared for the less fortunate.
”We are not whiners and nothing will ever dampen our love for South Africa as it is our country and our home, but crime plagues our daily lives and the government chooses to remain silent and turn a blind eye,” they wrote.
”We ask you, President Mbeki, how many more must die before you will take action on what is long overdue …”
Signatories to the advertisement included Member of Parliament Sherry Chen, Johannesburg councillor Michael Sun, the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission’s Vincent Lin and Feng’s wife, Jenny. — Sapa