Dewani said that if he broke
off the engagement his family would disown him, and he needed
to find a ‘way out of it.’
So exactly why would his family disown him?
Surely they would not disown him if he did
not marry Anni specifically?
This was not even an arranged marriage.
But it seems that Shrien kept up the appearances
of a relationship, right up to engagement and marriage,
as a smoke screen for his true sexual preferences.
|
And,
it’s a crying shame, but there are many families
out there who would disown their own children if they
found out that they were gay. |
In court, Dewani’s advocate, Clare
Montgomery QC, cited suggestions of his homosexuality in
earlier reports that Shrien had paid a German ‘rentboy’
for sex as one of the reasons why he should not be extradited
to South Africa to stand trial.
She read from an NGO report that, because
of the high prevalence of rape and of Aids infection by
inmates, being imprisoned in South Africa would be a “virtual
death sentence”.
South African prison experts Sasha Gear
and Amanda Dissel, both formerly of the Centre for the Study
of Violence and Reconciliation, gave evidence by video.
They said the risk of rape was especially
high in the Western Cape prisons where Dewani would be held
because of the high incidence among inmates of gang members,
who had a culture of forcing certain inmates to become sexual
partners of criminals, submitting to continual rape.
Gear said Dewani would be particularly vulnerable
to rape because he was young, good-looking, “well-preserved”,
a first-time offender unfamiliar with gang or inmate slang
and culture, because he had not personally committed a crime
of violence against another man, which would create respect
for his manhood among inmates, because he was suffering
from mental illness, and because he had been identified
in reports as homosexual.
I can’t help but feel sorry for Shrien.
Not because of what awaits him if he is
found guilty, but because, if it is true, he was prepared
to go to such extreme measures to hide from his parents
the fact that he was gay.
Man has certainly and royally fokked up
the concept of love.
