Botswana defends flogging criminals in row with Zimbabwe

Botswana defends flogging criminals in row with Zimbabwe

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By Agencies

GABORONE - Botswana has defended its practice of flogging people who cross its borders illegally, rejecting criticism by neighbouring Zimbabwe that the punishment is primitive.

"We do not discriminate and we are not going to give Zimbabweans any preferential treatment," Botswana's assistant minister for presidential affairs, Oliphant Mfa, told AFP late Monday.

"If they break the law in our country, they are going to be punished," he said, adding that in his view corporal punishment was not as harsh as a prison sentence.

"Take something like pick-pocketing and petty theft, you don't take someone to prison for such crimes. You give them two or three lashes, and tell them to go home and never repeat that again," he said.

An estimated 125,000 Zimbabweans enter Botswana each month and tensions have risen between the two countries with Botswanans blaming immigrants for an increase in crime.

On Monday, Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper quoted junior national security minister Nicholas Goche as saying that four days of talks with Botswana's home affairs minister had failed to yield an agreement to halt the floggings.

Goche described flogging as "primitive and unruly" and said "Botswana should move with the times" and abolish it.
AFP
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