<hot on-topic re****t by John Manning (cut, copy & paste)>
John Manning <jrobertm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
<eLmdnY59spvj-ZLVnZ2dnUVZ_o3inZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
:
: Lynchings in Congo as ***** theft panic hits capital
:
: By Joe Bavier
: Reuters: Apr 22, 2008
:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080422/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_congo_democratic_witchcraft_1
:
:
: Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers
: accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's
: *****es after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings
: triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
:
: Re****ts of so-called ***** snatching are not uncommon
: in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions
: and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual
: killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
:
: Rumours of ***** theft began circulating last week in
: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling
: capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly
: dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised
: to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis
: wearing gold rings.
:
: Pur****ted victims, 14 of whom were also detained by
: police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to
: make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some
: residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the
: promise of a cure.
:
: "You just have to be accused of that, and people come
: after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings.
: You see them covered in marks after being beaten,"
: Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told
: Reuters on Tuesday.
:
: Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their
: victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed
: seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected *****
: snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27
: men have since been released.
:
: "I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
:
: "But when you try to tell the victims that their
: *****es are still there, they tell you that it's
: become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that
: I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone
: home and tried it'," he said.
:
: Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from
: nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the
: witchcraft in revenge for a recent government
: crackdown on its members.
:
: "It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who
: was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said
: 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits
: near a Kinshasa police station.
:
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