AN unlit petrol bomb has been thrown into the home of the editor of an online newspaper devoted to reporting on political matters in Oudtshoorn and the Eden District municipality, writes Ella Smook in the Cape Argus.
"You have been warned. Now you must bear the consequences. Just so you know, this is only the beginning," read a note, in Afrikaans, left outside his front door.
Drewan Baird is a journalist and editor of Oudtshoorn Online, a popular cyber journal known for its no-holds-barred reporting and commentary on local issues and public representatives.
Its motto is: "We stir… Only the informed are free."
Baird said he and an associate were meeting in the study of his home when he heard a noise at around 9pm. They took little notice, however, thinking the family's cat had knocked something over.
But when his daughter, who had already gone to bed, called to say that there was something lying on the living room floor, he rushed to the adjacent room, where she handed him a bottle filled with a pinkish liquid.
Baird said he identified the liquid as fuel and rushed outside, where he found an envelope on the porch containing the printed warning note.
He told the Cape Argus he suspected "that an aggrieved party or parties might be responsible for the attack".
"There seems little doubt, if any, that the attack is in answer to certain recent exclusive exposures and continued criticism," Baird said.
"Yet I personally find it incredible that my journalism can be met with such a loathsome act as petrol-bombing."
Police spokesman Louis Visser confirmed the incident, and said that the possibility that it was an aggrieved party was "definitely" being probed.
Click here to read the full report, posted on iol.co.za.
