GEORGE NEWS - Local resident Hein Scheepers, who is mentioned in the article The benchmark of how not to act (George Herald 21 January, p. 8), has indicated that he is dissatisfied with some of the content of the article and wishes to place the following on record.

The content Scheepers refers to includes an allegation that businesses other than The Bench denied him access to their premises - a statement he says is not true.

On 1 November 2020, he was at the Bench wearing a camouflage bucket hat.

According to Scheepers, he was confronted by a person at the venue who was wearing civilian clothes. Scheepers believes that the confrontation amounted to damaging his basic human rights.

Scheepers live-streamed a social media video depicting a conversation between him and a manager of The Bench. The video elicited widespread attention online.

Contrary to what had previously been stated, Scheepers stated that he was not prohibited from entering any other business in George at any time.

Scheepers clarified that he is a trained and qualified youth empowerment community development practitioner and was previously involved in various empowerment projects with Youth Café operated by the Provincial Depart-ment of Social Development. Although

Scheepers and the Youth Café were previously involved in a legal dispute, the matter has been settled and relationships have been restored to such an extent that they have been working together on new projects.

Scheepers indica-ted that he wishes no harm to anyone involved and that he is merely taking a stand to entrench basic human rights across the board to the benefit of all people.

'We bring you the latest George, Garden Route news'