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The Witch Killers

THese Islamic witch hunters haven't started killing "witches" yet but it probably won't be long before they do so.

Three elderly people have been detained in Chechnya on suspicion of "practising sorcery", prompting concern among civil-rights defenders.

The three - two women and a man - were detained in Urus-Martan in the autonomous republic of southern Russia's Caucasus Mountains, and paraded on the local state-run Grozny TV channel.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian president of Chechnya, has used his own interpretation of Islamic law to bolster his eight-year rule in the overwhelmingly Muslim republic, and accordingly set up the Islamic Medical Institute in 2013 in association with the local clerical leadership to counter "sorcerers and witches".

In July, he expressed dissatisfaction with progress, and the Institute's black-clad religious police duly reported this month that they had detained a number of suspects.

The latest suspects appear to be practitioners of nothing worse than folk medicine and fortune-telling, the Kavkazsky-Uzel Caucasus news site reports.

The man and one of the women confess on air to "consorting with djins" - evil spirits - and the other woman says she advised a client to bathe in chicken broth to evade the "evil eye".

All the time, Grozny TV cuts back to the imposing figure of the head of the Islamic Institute of Medicine, Adam Elzhurkayev, who points to alleged evidence of witchcraft, ranging from bottles and chicken bones to dolls and inscriptions, all laid out on a table.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news...lEVqjl44j1DK7VBwpqHpA37B4Rh-FxQkxntUGDj6MhYM#

He brandishes a long stick and accuses the trio of "selling their souls to the Devil", while the TV presenter dutifully points out that the practice of magic is "confirmed to by harmful by Islamic law".
 
ramonmercado said:
THese Islamic witch hunters haven't started killing "witches" yet but it probably won't be long before they do so. Three elderly people have been detained in Chechnya on suspicion of "practising sorcery", prompting concern among civil-rights defenders.
Click to expand...
How enlightened. How civilized. What a yardstick of modern values.
 
a) Import huge numbers of people from countries where black magic, witchcraft and FGM are rife.

b) Profess astonishment when reported cases increase in number.

*sigh*

maximus otter
 
Last edited:
Yithian said:
We have 'been here' before.

And it wasn't true then, but some people made careers off the claim.
Click to expand...

There is some past evidence on other Threads:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/page-3#post-1539269

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/page-3#post-1613957

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/muti-murder.2064/

There are also numerous reports of such activities taking place in Africa on
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/

Seeing as I have your attention and to save the energy involved in another post perhaps this Thread could be merged with:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/
 
ramonmercado said:
There is some past evidence on other Threads:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/page-3#post-1539269

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/page-3#post-1613957

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/muti-murder.2064/

There are also numerous reports of such activities taking place in Africa on
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/

Seeing as I have your attention and to save the energy involved in another post perhaps this Thread could be merged with:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-witch-killers.14434/
Click to expand...

Will merge it in there when it is moved from Fortean News.

(Merge since completed)
 
Well, it's more likely to come from a twisted fundamentalist Christian belief in black magic than someone practicing tribal rites in grass skirt and witch doctor mask.
 
Children targeted again.

Two young girls accused of witchcraft have been set ablaze in Waduruk community, Shen village, Jos South local government area of Plateau State.‌

The victims, said to be aged 11 and 5 years respectively, are reportedly battling for their lives at the Plateau State Specialists Hospital, Jos.
The State Chairperson of Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, Mrs. Jennifer Yarima described the act as a gross violation of the human rights of the victims and called for concerted efforts from law enforcement agencies to ensure the perpetrators are arrested and prosecuted.

In a statement she signed and issued in Jos, the NAWOJ Chairperson noted,

“We condemn in strong terms the unspeakable human rights violation meted on two minors, 11 years old Godgift Nyam and five years old Mary Gyang who sustained unimaginable degree of injuries after they were burnt. The menace of jungle justice has no place in our contemporary society; it is a disheartening situation that minors will be subjected to such a traumatizing agony without any substantial evidence to prove their claims. The members of the community have continued to shield the perpetrators of this dastardly act and chased security agents when they went to arrest suspects. Since nobody is above the law, concerted efforts should be made to arrest and prosecute all those involved in this act of inhumanity to serve as a deterrent to others.”

https://www.informationng.com/2019/12/young-girls-accused-of-witchcraft-set-ablaze-in-plateau.html
 
Some really appalling stuff here, "witch" sanctioned by a country's president. killing

For 22 years Gambians lived under the grip of former president, Yahya Jammeh, whose rule was marked by allegations of human rights abuses including killings, witch hunts and forced labour - although Mr Jammeh has previously denied wrongdoing. Since his shock election defeat more than five years ago, the country has been coming to terms with its painful history, including through the medium of art.
line

Fatou Terema Jeng was overcome with emotion when she first saw her photographs in the grounds of a museum called The Memory House. But it was not the usual despair and sadness she feels when she thinks about what she said was done to her family by the Yahya Jammeh regime in The Gambia.

Instead of tears, there were smiles.

"I was so happy when I saw my portraits. They looked so beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling that day."

Her radio technician husband, Sankung Balajo, died because of witch hunts allegedly meted out on the orders of Mr Jammeh. They apparently started in 2009 after he blamed an aunt's death on witchcraft and are thought to have occurred sporadically over seven years. They struck deep terror and divisions in communities in Gambia.

Ms Jeng's images are part of a powerful series of portraits of 11 people who are sharing their stories of the horrific abuses they say they and their families suffered under Mr Jammeh, who was in power between 1994 and 2016. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61650362
 

Jihadists slaughter at least 26 women after Boko Haram commander accused them of being witches​


Boko Haram jihadists slaughtered at least 26 women by slitting their throats after their commander accused them of being witches who caused the sudden death of his children in Nigeria.

Around 40 women were held in a village near Gwoza town in Borno State, north-eastern Nigeria, on the orders of jihadist commander Ali Guyile after his children suddenly died overnight, according to relatives and a woman who escaped.

They said the commander had accused the women of causing the children's deaths through witchcraft.

On Thursday last week, 14 women were slaughtered in Gwoza town and a few days later, another 12 were killed by the Boko Haram jihadists.

Accusations of witchcraft are not uncommon in Nigeria, a religious conservative country almost equally divided between the mostly Muslim north and Christian south.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...men-Boko-Haram-commander-accused-WITCHES.html

maximus otter
 
Land is the real reason in these cases.

BBC Africa Eye investigates a shocking spate of elderly people accused of witchcraft then murdered along Kenya’s Kilifi coast, and discovers the true motives behind the killings.

Seventy-four-year-old Tambala Jefwa stares vacantly out of his one remaining eye as his wife, Sidi, gently removes his shirt.

“They stabbed him with a knife like this and pulled,” she says pointing to the long scar stretching down from his collar bone.

She takes his head in her hands showing what happened in another attack. “They had to pull the scalp back and sew it together.”

Mr Jefwa was accused of being a witch and has been attacked twice in his home, 80km (50 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi. The first left him without an eye. The second nearly killed him. The couple own more than 30 acres of land where they grow maize and raise a few chickens. There has been a dispute with family members over boundaries. They believe this was the real reason Mr Jefwa was almost killed, not that people genuinely believed he was a witch.

“I was left for dead. I lost so much blood. I don’t know why they attacked me, but it can only be the land,” says Mr Jefwa.
.
Belief in witchcraft and superstition is common in many countries. But in parts of Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa, it can be used to justify killing elderly people to take their land.

A report called, The Aged, on Edge, by Kenyan human rights organisation Haki Yetu says one elderly person is murdered along the Kilifi coast every week in the name of witchcraft. Its programme officer, Julius Wanyama, says many families believe it is one of their own who orders the killing.

“They use the word witchcraft as a justification because they will get public sympathy. And people will say: ‘If he was a witch, it is good you have killed him.’”

Few people in this region have title deeds for their land. Without a will, they rely on passing it down customarily through the family. Mr Wanyama says seven out of 10 of the killings are elderly men because land ownership and inheritance lie with them. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng3z3j421o
 
Land is the real reason in these cases

As of old, both here and abroad. It always mystified me why people couldn't see the obviously vested interests in play regarding many witch or criminal trials: whether we're talking about notorious historical cases like that of Elizabeth Báthory or of basically everyday folk whose antagonists/prosecutors stood to gain, financially or otherwise, from their prosecutions. Or maybe people could see what was truly going on and knew they were powerless to stop the madness.
 
ramonmercado said:
Land is the real reason in these cases.

BBC Africa Eye investigates a shocking spate of elderly people accused of witchcraft then murdered along Kenya’s Kilifi coast, and discovers the true motives behind the killings.

Seventy-four-year-old Tambala Jefwa stares vacantly out of his one remaining eye as his wife, Sidi, gently removes his shirt.

“They stabbed him with a knife like this and pulled,” she says pointing to the long scar stretching down from his collar bone.

She takes his head in her hands showing what happened in another attack. “They had to pull the scalp back and sew it together.”

Mr Jefwa was accused of being a witch and has been attacked twice in his home, 80km (50 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi. The first left him without an eye. The second nearly killed him. The couple own more than 30 acres of land where they grow maize and raise a few chickens. There has been a dispute with family members over boundaries. They believe this was the real reason Mr Jefwa was almost killed, not that people genuinely believed he was a witch.

“I was left for dead. I lost so much blood. I don’t know why they attacked me, but it can only be the land,” says Mr Jefwa.
.
Belief in witchcraft and superstition is common in many countries. But in parts of Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa, it can be used to justify killing elderly people to take their land.

A report called, The Aged, on Edge, by Kenyan human rights organisation Haki Yetu says one elderly person is murdered along the Kilifi coast every week in the name of witchcraft. Its programme officer, Julius Wanyama, says many families believe it is one of their own who orders the killing.

“They use the word witchcraft as a justification because they will get public sympathy. And people will say: ‘If he was a witch, it is good you have killed him.’”

Few people in this region have title deeds for their land. Without a will, they rely on passing it down customarily through the family. Mr Wanyama says seven out of 10 of the killings are elderly men because land ownership and inheritance lie with them. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng3z3j421o
Click to expand...

Sorcery and land again.

At least 26 people were reportedly killed by a gang in three remote villages in Papua New Guinea’s north, United Nations and police officials said.

Acting provincial police commander in the island nation’s East Sepik province, James Baugen, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): “It was a very terrible thing … when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 young men.”

Mr Baugen told the ABC that all the houses in the villages had been burned and the remaining villagers were sheltering at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.

Sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership
Click to expand...
Chris Jensen

“Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed. There were heads chopped off,” Mr Baugen said, adding that the attackers were hiding and there were no arrests yet.

Chris Jensen, country director for aid group World Vision, said 26 people had been confirmed dead, eight were missing and 51 families were displaced from their homes in Angoram district on the crocodile-infested Sepik River, the longest river on New Guinea island.

“The trigger seems to be, as it is in most cases in PNG, a combination of a couple of things. But sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership,” Jensen told the Associated Press.

“An individual will get accused of sorcery and they may be the people who perhaps have some control over some assets or land.”

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/a...-gang-in-remote-papua-new-guinea-1654469.html
 
Steven said:
Land is the real reason in these cases

As of old, both here and abroad. It always mystified me why people couldn't see the obviously vested interests in play regarding many witch or criminal trials: whether we're talking about notorious historical cases like that of Elizabeth Báthory or of basically everyday folk whose antagonists/prosecutors stood to gain, financially or otherwise, from their prosecutions. Or maybe people could see what was truly going on and knew they were powerless to stop the madness.
Click to expand...
Yes, I wouldn't have given much for the chances of an ordinary person standing up and saying 'oh, come on!' They would have found themselves in the dock alongside the accused before their feet could touch the ground. It relied on those in power standing up for the disenfranchised, which did start to happen, certainly towards the end of the whole 'witch' thing, when most people accused of witchcraft were released, rather than hanged.
 
Blame it on books.

The sudden emergence of witch trials in early modern Europe may have been fueled by one of humanity's most significant intellectual milestones: the invention of the printing press in 1450.

A new study in Theory and Society shows that the printing of witch-hunting manuals, particularly the Malleus maleficarum in 1487, played a crucial role in spreading persecution across Europe. The study also highlights how trials in one city influenced others. This social influence—observing what neighbors were doing—played a key role in whether a city would adopt witch trials.

"Cities weren't making these decisions in isolation," said Kerice Doten-Snitker, a Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and lead author of the study.

"They were watching what their neighbors were doing and learning from those examples. The combination of new ideas from books and the influence of nearby trials created the perfect conditions for these persecutions to spread."

The witch hunts in Central Europe took off in the late 15th century and lasted for almost 300 years, resulting in the prosecution of roughly 90,000 people, with nearly 45,000 executions. Belief in witches and witchcraft had been present in European culture for centuries, but the level of systematic, widespread persecution that occurred during this period was unprecedented.

How a witch-hunting manual & social networks helped ignite Europe's witch craze
First witch trials across cities in the Holy Roman Empire and editions of demonological texts (Malleus maleficarum in solid black lines; other texts, described in the appendix, in dashed grey). Credit: Theory and Society (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s11186-024-09576-1

According to Doten-Snitker, the advent of the printing press allowed for the rapid dissemination of ideas about witchcraft that had previously been confined to small intellectual circles, such as religious scholars and local inquisitors. The most infamous of these publications, the Malleus maleficarum, was both a theoretical and practical guide for identifying, interrogating, and prosecuting witches. Doten-Snitker explains that once these manuals entered circulation, they provided a framework for how local authorities could manage suspected witchcraft in their communities.

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-witch-manual-social-networks-ignite.html
 
Fighting the witch killers.

Activist Leo Igwe is at the forefront of efforts to help people accused of witchcraft in Nigeria, as it can destroy their lives - and even lead to them being lynched.

“I could no longer take it. You know, just staying around and seeing people being killed randomly,” Dr Igwe tells the BBC.

After completing his doctorate in religious studies in 2017 he was restless. He had written extensively about witchcraft and was frustrated that academia did not allow him to challenge the practice head on.

The BBC has seen evidence of Pentecostal pastors in Nigeria holding services targeting alleged witches, a practice Dr Igwe says is not unusual in a country where many people believe in the supernatural.

Warning: This article contains details some readers may find disturbing.

So Dr Igwe set up Advocacy For Alleged Witches, an organisation focussed on “using compassion, reason, and science to save lives of those affected by superstition”.

Dr Igwe’s prevention work also extends to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe and beyond.

One of the people the organisation has helped in Nigeria is 33-year-old Jude. In August, it intervened when he was accused and beaten in Benue State.

Jude, a glazier, who also works part-time in a bank, says he was on his way to work one morning, when he met a boy carrying two heavy jars of water which prompted him to comment on the boy’s physical agility. The boy did not take the comments kindly, but he went on his way. Later, Jude was followed by a mob of about 15 people throwing stones at him. Among them was the boy he had greeted earlier.

“Young men started fighting me as well, trying to set me ablaze,” Jude says.

He was accused of causing the disappearance of the boy’s penis through witchcraft, an accusation that shocked him and is untrue.

Claims of manhood disappearances are not uncommon in some parts of West Africa. It is a claim that has been linked to Koro syndrome, a mental illness otherwise known as missing or genital retraction hysteria.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0z0r5dgg1o
 
England's last executed 'witch' may have survived

The last woman believed to have been executed in England for witchcraft may have avoided the gallows, according to new research.

Prof Mark Stoyle, a historian at the University of Southampton, believes a spelling error by a court official meant the accused woman was not hanged, but instead lived for several years.

Alice Molland was sentenced at Exeter Castle, Devon, in 1685 for "bewitching" three of her neighbours.

91452227-14018797-image-a-14_1730279515005.jpg


She was presumed to have been executed in the city's Heavitree area in the same year, making her England's last executed witch.

Prof Stoyle's research suggests that the court documents from the time contained a spelling mistake, and Alice Molland might actually have been called Avis Molland.

He said: "Court records from the 17th century were written in Latin, and in this form it would only have taken a single mis-stroke of the clerk of the court's pen to transform 'Avicia' (Avis) into 'Alicia' (Alice).

Molland was an unusual name in Exeter, so when Prof Stoyle saw a reference to an Avis Molland in some local archives, he was struck by its close resemblance.

He said: "I immediately asked myself, did Alice Molland ever exist? Is Alice, in fact, Avis?"

Circumstantial evidence suggested Avis had been imprisoned at Exeter Castle at the same time as the trial for Alice was listed.

Avis died eight years after the supposed execution of Alice in 1693.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2prk3v2eo

maximus otter
 
An old case.

BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine

@RobLooseCannon

Today, in 1688, a survivor of Oliver Cromwell’s deportation to Barbados as an indentured servant became the last person to be hanged as a witch in Boston, Massachusetts. Ann Glover's nightmarish life story is one of religious prejudice, colonial oppression, and the hysteria of Puritan society.Born in Ireland then deported during Oliver Cromwell’s conquest and attempted genocide she eventually escaped a life of forced servitude in Barbados and moved to Boston. There, she and her daughter Mary worked as housekeepers for John Goodwin.In the summer of 1688, 4 of the Goodwin children fell mysteriously ill. Dr. Thomas Oakes, under pressure to identify the cause, did the obvious rational thing....declared Ann Glover of practising "hellish witchcraft" on the sick kids. Glovers Catholicism and the fact she spoke Gaeilge made her a target in the Puritan colony. She didn't stand a chance in the kangaroo court.A Puritan minister called Cotton Mather condemned the innocent housemaid and mother as a “scandalous old Irishwoman, very poor, a Roman Catholic and obstinate in idolatry.” Her refusal to renounce her faith, and her inability to recite the Lord's Prayer in English clearly "proved" her guilt. Poor Glover was convicted and barbarically hanged as a witch by these godly folk.Centuries later, in 1988, the Boston City Council formally acknowledged the injustice of Ann Glover's execution. The 16th of November was declared as Goody Glover Day. She is considered the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts. A memorial plaque in Boston’s North End describes her as “an elderly Irish widow hanged as a witch because she had refused to renounce her Catholic faith.”

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Last edited7:51 AM · Nov 16, 2024 from Fingal, Ireland
 
maximus otter said:
England's last executed 'witch' may have survived

The last woman believed to have been executed in England for witchcraft may have avoided the gallows, according to new research.

Prof Mark Stoyle, a historian at the University of Southampton, believes a spelling error by a court official meant the accused woman was not hanged, but instead lived for several years.

Alice Molland was sentenced at Exeter Castle, Devon, in 1685 for "bewitching" three of her neighbours.

91452227-14018797-image-a-14_1730279515005.jpg


She was presumed to have been executed in the city's Heavitree area in the same year, making her England's last executed witch.

Prof Stoyle's research suggests that the court documents from the time contained a spelling mistake, and Alice Molland might actually have been called Avis Molland.

He said: "Court records from the 17th century were written in Latin, and in this form it would only have taken a single mis-stroke of the clerk of the court's pen to transform 'Avicia' (Avis) into 'Alicia' (Alice).

Molland was an unusual name in Exeter, so when Prof Stoyle saw a reference to an Avis Molland in some local archives, he was struck by its close resemblance.

He said: "I immediately asked myself, did Alice Molland ever exist? Is Alice, in fact, Avis?"

Circumstantial evidence suggested Avis had been imprisoned at Exeter Castle at the same time as the trial for Alice was listed.

Avis died eight years after the supposed execution of Alice in 1693.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2prk3v2eo

maximus otter
Click to expand...
I grew up walking past that plaque (or the older one that used to be there) and asking about it when I was very small so I knew all about the witch trials in Exeter. It would be lovely to think that one of the women escaped her fate, although I do fear that Avis might well be Alice's daughter - it being common for mothers and daughters to both be accused of witchcraft.
 
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