Posts by whrin_admin

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Religious Police Hunt Witches on Twitter

Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police authority has decided to launch a war against what it described as vice and sorcery accounts on Twitter inside the conservative Gulf kingdom, saying it aims to destroy all those accounts.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it had formed special teams to track those accounts and arrest those who are behind them.

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USA: Woman accused of sex abuse, told children she was witch

An Evansville woman was arrested on warrants out of Henderson for a number of crimes, including three counts of sexual abuse.

Investigators said 28-year-old Jessica Smith hosted a number of children in her home, ranging from ages six to 13, and provided them with alcohol and marijuana. Police said Smith told the children she was a witch and would cast spells and hexes on them if they told anyone.
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Ghana: Ignorance, witchcraft & cannibalism

This post is written as part of the columnist’s continued fight to expose and discourse relevant cultural, social, political and economic issues which affect the development of Ghana/Africa. His column discusses many issues, including ignorance, witchcraft and cannibalism in Ghana and the world.

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Philippines: Ritual killing of mother – blood drained, body parts gone – jolts village

At the weekend, officials discovered a grisly sight: the badly mutilated body of Musala Amil, who had apparently died at the hands of her three sons.

Blood appeared to have been drained from her body; several body parts were missing, according to the chair of Barangay Kamasi, Bai Suraida Mamaluba.

“One of her relatives said the victim’s eyes had been taken; her throat was slashed, and innards were missing — they said these appeared to have been eaten by the suspects,” Mamaluba said.

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India: Man gets death penalty for human sacrifice

A court has awarded the death penalty to a man who beheaded a baby and drank its blood in West Bengal’s Bankura district two years ago. 

Lakshmi Kanta Sarkar, a tantric, was caught drinking blood that was dripping from the severed head of the baby in January 2012. The villagers thrashed him before handing him over to the police. 

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India: The Prevalence of Witches

A lot more than just legislation is needed to curb the frequent incidents of witch-hunting in Odisha. 

The infamous medieval treatise on witch-hunting, the Malleus Maleficarum (1486), speaks in the authoritative voice of a book of law —  it lays down the rules with which the process of ‘justice’, involving the identification, prosecution and systematic elimination of witches (almost always women), is to be conducted.

The methodology it codified does not really sound so medieval when considered in the context of contemporary Indian reality. Here, the common people’s continuing lack of access to the formal justice system in remote and not-so-remote areas means that any powerful person can mimic the voice of law to serve his interests, as the author of Malleus Maleficarum did. 

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Ghana: Witch camps

This series of photographs by Jane Hahn highlights the living conditions of women who have been ostracized by their original communities, and forced to create their own community, safe for ‘witches’ to live in.

See the photographs here

India: Families of witch-hunt victims ostracised in Gumla

The witch-hunting menace, which has seen many innocent women being persecuted, tortured and even killed in Jharkhand, has also hit their family members who are ostracised by villagers.

The practice of witchcraft prevails in several districts of Jharkhand, particularly Gumla, as casualties are reported from there every so often.

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South Africa: Unrest – Muti killings blamed

Public unrest in Limpopo has been put down to “pure criminality”, with communities drawing the “conclusion” that there is a spate of muti killings plaguing some areas in the province.

“There isn’t a spate of muti-related killings in Limpopo. The recent incidents are isolated,” said Limpopo safety, security and liaison department spokesperson Molebatsi Masedi. Masedi was reacting to the turbulent past week, where community protests against killings in the Motupa, Moleketla and Kubjana villages surrounding Tzaneen turned violent.

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South Africa: Kubjana boy was not a muti murder

The three year old boy found dead in the boot of a car in Kubjana village near Relela died of suffocation, Limpopo police said on Friday.

“A post mortem which was conducted on Thursday has showed that Tsephi Makgopa Mulaudzi, whose lifeless body was found in a vehicle of the businessman at Kubjana, died of suffocation,” Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said.

“The body was intact and no body parts were missing.”

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