Thousands Of Women Killed In Witch Hunts

"In places where superstition and vigilantism overlap and small rumors can turn deadly, nearly 2,100 people accused of witchcraft have been killed between 2000 and 2012, according to crime records gathered by the Indian newspaper Mint. Others placed the number at 2,500; others higher still. “Like the proverbial tip of a very deep iceberg, available data hides much of the reality of a problem that is deeply ingrained in society,” according to New Delhi-based Partners for Law in Development. “It is only the most gruesome cases that are reported — most cases of witch-hunting go unreported and unrecorded.”

'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead' closer to number one spot following Margaret Thatcher's death

Lady Thatcher’s death could propel The Wizard Of Oz track "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” to the top of the charts. Those who saw her death as a cause for celebration have prompted a download surge for the track. Within 48 hours of the former Prime Minister’s death, the song has entered the official UK chart at number 10. It is expected to climb higher as a result of a Facebook campaign being set up to encourage sales.

The Facebook group, encouraging people to download the "Witch" song to get it to number one, already had 664 members and was originally set up back in July 2007. The BBC said it would decide whether to play Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead during Radio 1's top 40 countdown when places are finalised this weekend. In a statement it said: "The Official Chart Show on Sunday is a historical and factual account of what the British public has been buying and we will make a decision about playing it when the final chart positions are clear."

The Independent – Official Facebook Group

Cruel life of ‘child witches’

They are condemned as witches and warlocks, the demon seed of sorcery. Denounced, shunned and ejected from their homes. Yet they’re children as young as 4 and 5, tossed onto the scrapheap of street life to fend for themselves, chased by predators and running away from police.

Platini — named grandiosely for a former soccer star – is 14 and for the past three months has been sleeping in the doorway of a bakery in Makala, one of the capital’s poorest communes, where he can smell the aroma of fresh-baked bread and beg for morsels.

“My mother died when I was little and they said I killed her, that I ate her from the inside,’’ the youth explains in his native Lingali tongue through an interpreter. This accusation – feeding off the internal organs of a relative who’s died from an undiagnosed illness – is a common motif in the mystic anthropology of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the growing phenomenon of “child witches’’ driven from their homes.

Platini’s father remarried. His new wife wanted nothing to do with the boy and resurrected rumours of the child’s possession by evil spirits. She beat him remorselessly — 16 surgical staples required at one point, for a broken joint and an attack with the jagged edge of a smashed bottle.

Full story on thestar.com

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