Mrs Esther Dey, Executive Director of Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Association of Ghana (ARDAG), says education on dementia, a medical condition, is most needed in the country.
She said this was mainly because symptoms of the condition easily make sufferers look like witches in the eyes of people, who are ignorant of the condition and superstitious as well. Read more here
Gwen Goodwin, 52, thinks that Melissa Mark-Viverito (Mayor de Blasio’s pick for City Council Speaker) purposefully targeted her East 100th Street building “as the canvas for a five-story image of a bodiless rooster atop wooden poles.” Mark-Viverito was the head of urban-art campaign Los Muros Hablan (“The Walls Speak”) last summer, which sought to paint murals on walls across the city to celebrate Latino culture.
But Goodwin writes in the lawsuit, “According to neighbors of Puerto Rican and other backgrounds, in the Caribbean culture, this constituted a curse and a death threat, as a swastika or a noose would symbolize typically to many Jews or African-Americans.” Read more here
The government of Ghana has announced plans to close down the ‘witch’ camps in the northern part of the country.
This is not the first time the government of Ghana has proposed closing the witch camps as a measure to eradicate witchcraft-related abuse in the country. In 2011, the Deputy Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs Hajia Hawawu Boya Gariba announced plans to close down the camps and reintegrate the victims with their families. She described the existence and operation of a witch camp as ‘an indictment on the conscience of the society’. These declarations are not unconnected with pressures on state authorities.
The government of Ghana has recently been under local and international pressure from human rights groups and development agencies to take action against witch hunting. Read more here
There is a great problem brewing in Ghana – What to do with all the witches? The government has decided to eradicate witchcraft. The plan is to close down the safe camps where those accused of witchcraft fled to get away from their accusers. The victims are to be sent back to their accusers who will kill them in all likelihood.
Witchcraft is big business in Ghana. Soothsayers, priests and chiefs wield great power over largely helpless people through the threat of exposing common people as witches. Once accused, the “Witch” is usually killed or expelled from the village. The accused witches that escape with their lives end up in witch camps where they are protected from execution.
Now Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, wants to close the camps and send the “Witches” home to be killed. Read more here
A search of Kashif Pavaiz’s e-mails revealed that before he allegedly arranged to kill his wife on a Boonton street, he contacted a total of four black magic and voodoo companies in an effort to make Nazish Noorani either commit suicide, leave him, die accidentally or simply disappear, a detective testified today.
Morris County Prosecutor’s Detective Supervisor Christopher Vanadia testified in a pretrial hearing in which the prosecution is seeking to admit Parvaiz’s “prior bad acts” as evidence in his trial. Read more here
Strasson Group presents WARX2: The Unseen Battleground Features Interviews with Kogelo Witch Doctor, John Dimo; and Kenyan Pastor, Thomas Muthee, the documentary film about the war of ghosts and spirits, and the untold truths about US military suicides, that will open in theaters in early 2014.
The new documentary film, WARX2 (war times 2), will enlighten viewers about the possibility of spiritual warfare that may be causing US soldiers to commit suicides. Many Arab and African cultures use ghosts and spirits to attack, control and brainwash their enemies and other people. Shockingly high US military and veteran suicide rates have been reported. In 2011 and 2012 there were more suicide deaths among active duty US soldiers than total US military combat deaths. Read more here
The police have arrested Obed Ndoyela, the assembly member for the Deeper Electoral Area in the Nanumba north district of the Northern region for allegedly killing one person and also causing injuries to two others on Wednesday.
Obed Ndoyela is reported to have opened fire on the victims after the three accused his mother of being a witch. Read more here
A blog about a journalist’s experience of Christmas in a witch camp:
“It was the eve of Christmas, the period in which Christians all over the world would often wind-down their shopping escapades, book the church activities to attend, which friends and family members to visit and what gift to give to who, as they prepare for the annual celebration of the birth of Christ.
But mine was work as usual and the destination was the Gambaga Witches Camp in the East Mamprusi District in the Northern Region. The camp has over the past decades served as home-away-from-home for hundreds of women accused of witchcraft…” Read more here
A 44-year-old Egyptian man threatened Saudi police trying to arrest him for sorcery to unleash ‘jinn’ (ghosts) against them. But despite his arrest, he did not carry out his threat.
Police in the Western Saudi town of Makkah raised a house and seized the unnamed sorcerer after reports that he used magic to control a Saudi family. Read more here
While villagers strongly suspect it to be a case of human sacrifice, the police believe that it is a case of some wild animal attacking the boy.
The dead body of Harishankar, who went missing since Saturday, was found on the hills of the Lakhan Devi temple, with his head, hands and legs chopped off, Bilaspur Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) J R Thakur told PTI. Read more here
