Witch-Hunts in History and in the Present
History has a gory record of alleged witches with their supposed mumbo-jumbo and abracadabra incantations, branded and executed as harbingers of evil and sickness. Epilepsy, chicken pox, impotence and more recently HIV/AIDS have been attributed to spells cast by witches. Church authorities conducted the ignominious Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century to denounce witchcraft, sorcery, and alchemy, besides heresy and burnt even some brave young women like Joan of Arc at stake. The infamous 1692 Salem Witch trials in the US saw public frenzy whipped up by fanatics and thousands of people—mostly women, who were burnt at stakes or killed by dunking, called trial by water. People condemned as witches were also hanged, strangled, drugged to an unconscious or semiconscious state and then either tied to a stake or pushed into a barrel of tar and set afire.
Witch-Hunt Today—A ruse to terrorize the weak and the vulnerable
Even today, poor medical facilities and lack of education and superstitious beliefs, take gullible villagers to witchdoctors who blame hapless women for bad luck or failure of crops. Kangaroo courts decide the fate of these “witches” and perpetrate horrendous crimes on them. As recently as April 2008, villagers in Eastern India, beat up Lal Pari Devi, tied her to a tree, chopped her hair and smeared lime on her face as decreed by the people’s court. Rashmi Devi and Samri Devi were paraded naked and forced to swallow human excreta by villagers after being branded as witches causing an outbreak of chicken pox in the village.
Social scientists believe that people vent their frustration on women using superstition or witchcraft as a guise to grab their land or if the women deny sexual advances. In February this year Human Rights Watch appealed to the King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz when a Saudi court planned to behead Fawza Falih, an illiterate woman accused of witchcraft by religious police. Penis theft panic resurfaced in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, in April 2008 and police arrested 13 suspected sorcerers to save them from attempted lynching triggered by the alleged witchcraft. A decade ago Ghana saw gory bloodshed when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by violent mobs.
