The Harm

Woman beaten up for ‘witchcraft’

AJMER: Over 20 people beat a 75-year-old woman mercilessly on Wednesday in a Rajasthan village accusing her of practising witchcraft.

The incident took place at Danta village, 10 km from Ajmer. Jamuna Devi sustained multiple injuries and has been hospitalised.

Police, who registered a case against her assailants, said 10 of them have been identified. The accused have fled the village.

“I don’t want to return home until the culprits are arrested,” said Jamuna Devi. Jamuna’s son Govardhan said people armed with sticks attacked his mother in a nearby field.

According to police, the elderly woman had been blamed for the illness. “Preliminary investigations say Sita had given birth to a baby two months back and has been unwell since then.”

Sita’s husband took her to a tantrik, who said Jamuna had done black magic on Sita and only Jamuna can rescue Sita by spitting on her face. When Sita’s family asked Jamuna to do as the tantrik had suggested, she refused. This provoked the family, who beat her black and blue.” said the investigationg officer.

This world is depressing.

Black cats unlucky at shelters

Dozens of cats were lined up in cages at a Petco in Old Bridge, N.J., on a recent Saturday afternoon, much as they are most weekends at adoption events and shelters across the country. Percy tumbled playfully, while Parker snoozed in his litter pan, curled up with his cage mate, Alexandra. Chester gamboled about nearby.

Alexandra, a calico, and Chester, a brown tabby, received adoption applications, but Percy and Parker weren’t so lucky. They’re at a significant disadvantage in the adoption market, because they’re black.

“Black cats don’t get adopted nearly as frequently as other colors,” said Kathleen Fram, the co-chair of adoptions for the Summit Animal Rescue Association, or S.A.R.A., a nonprofit rescue group. “People just pass them by.”

A 2002 study in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science that examined adoption rates over nine months in a California pound found that black cats were about half as likely to be adopted as tabby cats and two-thirds less likely than white cats. But for cats in general, the odds are not good: of the approximately 3,000 cats of all colors offered for adoption during that time, only around 600, or 20 percent, found homes. Those remaining were euthanized.

Nationally, the Humane Society estimates that three to four million cats enter shelters each year, said Nancy Peterson, the feral cat program manager at the Humane Society headquarters in Washington, D.C. Of that number, only half are adopted. The rest, including disproportionate numbers of the less-adoptable black cats, are euthanized.

Black cats are considered bad luck in most Western cultures and have been associated with witchcraft for centuries. They’ve been portrayed in literature as everything from T.S. Elliot’s clever, phenomenal, “Magical Mr. Mistoffelees” to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat,” vilified by his master as “the hideous beast whose craft seduced me into murder.”

So millions of black cats are killed in animal “shelters” shelters don’t kill what there sheltering) every year cause of people irrational and ridiculous belief in some invisible undetectable force that can some how alter the laws of probability and manipulate people in ways that could benefit or harm some one and this force can be influenced by the color of the fur on a cat.

Eight Orissa villagers tortured over sorcery

Bhubaneswar, April 24 (IANS) Suspecting them to be sorcerers and responsible for sickness in the village, residents of an Orissa village beat up eight fellow villagers, used hammers to extract their teeth and made them eat human excreta. The incident occurred at Gereda village in the southern district of Ganjam, some 185 km from here, Monday but came to light after police officials visited the spot Wednesday.

Some villagers had fallen ill recently. Believing this to be due to witchcraft, people of the village asked a tantric or black magician to identify those practicing sorcery.

The tantric identified eight villagers, sub divisional police officer Jyoti Prakash Mohapatra told IANS.

A group of around 30 people took the men to a temple where they beat them, used a hammer to extract two teeth from each before subjecting them to the final ignominy of forcing them to eat human excreta, he said.

One of the victims filed a complaint with the police. On his complaint, one of the villagers involved was nabbed while the others are absconding, said Mohapatra, who went to the village.

The village has a population of about 2,000 mostly tribal people, he said.

Sorcery and witchcraft related crimes are very common in Orissa. Many people, including tribals, believe that witchcraft is the reason behind their problems.

A belief in magic and witchcraft and people suffer.

‘Penis Thefts’ Cause Panic In The Congo

Congolese police have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of stealing men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by reports of the witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa.

Belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts are known to take place.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital of 8 million people.

They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold ring

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear.

Some residents said the so-called witch doctors would then demand money in return for a cure.

“You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you,” said Kinshasa’s police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko.

“We’ve had a number of attempted lynchings. You see (the victims accused of being penis-snatchers) covered in marks after being beaten.”

Lynchings and arrests of innocent people cause people give in to panic and a belief in magic and witchcraft.

Woman beaten up after charges of witchcraft

surat, April 07 An elderly woman of Dahen village in Olpad taluka was severely beaten up by a youth on Sunday for allegedly practicing witchcraft.

Assaulted with an axe, the woman sustained severe injuries on her limbs and head. She is now undergoing treatment at the New Civil Hospital in Surat, where her condition is reported to be stable.

On Sunday evening, Chiman Rathod, also a resident of Dahen, went to Hansha’s house and attacked her accusing her of practicing witchcraft. Chiman also told her that she was responsible for the death of his elder brother Mohan Rathod. After the assault, Chiman fled the village.

Kalawati shouted for help and called in the neighbours who immediately rushed Hansha to the hospital. They also informed the Olpad police which registered a case against Chiman and arrested him in the afternoon.

Sub-Inspector H M Suthar said: “We arrested the accused from his house. During interrogation, we learnt there was some old dispute between Hansha and Chiman, which resulted in the incident.”

He added that Chiman’s elder brother, Mohan died two months ago due to severe illness. Mohan’s family members, including Chiman, suspected that Hansha was involved in witchcraft.

Igunga police kill, hold 14 over witchcraft saga

Police in Igunga have shot dead a 20-year old youth and are holding 14 people in connection with mob violence in which the Igunga Police Station was burned.

Tabora Regional Police Commander Muhudi Mshihiri confirmed the death of Shaaban Sombe alias John Sombe, a fresh drinks distributor, but declined to name those being held by the police.

The regional police chief said an angry mob of more than a thousand people, holding stones, laid siege on the police station on Thursday, threatening to killing two women, Hawa Athman and Malizia Ramadhani, residents of Nkokoto Street in Igunga. Their neighbours accuse them of practising witchcraft , prompting the police to put them under protective custody.

Commander Mshihiri said the people entered two police living quarters, breaking doors and windows where fearful family members had locked themselves in.

“The police fired teargas and plastic bullets, but had to open fire when their effort to disperse the people failed.“

Is it just me or are these story’s become more and more ridiculous?

Accused Witch Beaten in Eastern India

PATNA, India (AP) - A woman accused of practicing witchcraft in eastern India was tied to a tree and beaten by enraged villagers, police said Friday.

Lalpari Devi was attacked Wednesday in a village on the outskirts of Patna, the capital of Bihar state, local police official Nishant Tiwary told The Associated Press.

Tiwary said Devi claimed to be a faith healer and was treating a mentally ill woman in the village. When the woman attempted to commit suicide, Devi was attacked by angry villagers, Tiwary said.

He said Devi was tied to a tree with rope and repeatedly beaten. Her hair was then cut off and she was paraded through the village, Tiwary said. A video of the attack was aired Friday by New Delhi Television.

Ram Ayodhya Rai, the mentally ill woman’s husband, was arrested and charged with assault, Tiwari said. He added that police have started an investigation to find out how many other villagers were involved in the assault.

Devi is being investigated for fraud, Tiwary said.

Rural areas in India remain deeply superstitious, despite the country’s economic progress in recent years. Many people believe in black magic and dozens of people are beaten or killed every year for practicing witchcraft.

The price if the beliefe in magic.

Search for “witch” at All Africa.com

Witch Hunts in Java Called a Cover for Murders
Suspected witch killed by kin in Gujarat village
Witch killings in India

In the modern world you’d think that the idea of a witch would be relegated to fiction but its not. Even in the modern would people are killed for being a “witch”.
In some places in Africa where there are beliefs in witchcraft, it is believed that witches are not responsible for being a witch, they are possessed by evil spirits and those spirits must be exorcised but they then banished from the villages even though the “evil spirit” has been “exorcised” and it wasn’t there fault.
The parts of the world where these atrocity’s happen are parts where belief in magic, spirits, demons and spells still exists. These are the basis for the belief in witchcraft. If you believe in magic, you believe that people can use magic to harm others, if you believe in spirits and demons you believe that people can use them to harm others and that is essentially what witchcraft is.

Its only natural that the first post in this blogs would be the story that inspired me to start it.
Thanks to Amanda at Skepchick, I bring you this
A pregnant woman and her husband was hung for witchcraft, she then gives birth (2 months early) while being hung. Thankfully they managed to loosen the rope and get away. The 3 are now doing well (physically).
The 2 where accused of being involved in the death of a neighbour though witchcraft.