Police save 'sorcerers' after mob try to burn them alive in Papua New Guinea

[Alan C.]

Police save 'sorcerers' after mob try to burn them alive in Papua New Guinea

The women were accused of killing an eight-year-old girl in Mount Hagen, the same city where a crowd burnt a 20-year-old mother last week after stripping her naked and beating her in a killing that shocked the world.

A police commander, Teddy Tei, said an angry crowd claimed two elderly women had killed the eight-year-old, but that police believed she had been "gang-raped and killed by two known suspects".

The suspects were among the crowd attacking the women, who were tied to poles and about to be burnt. Also present was a "glassman" - a man who claimed to have supernatural powers and who had identified the luckless women as sorcerers and claimed they were responsible for the child's death.

About 20 people were arrested.

The incident follows the killing two weeks ago of Kepari Leniata, 20, who was reportedly tortured with a branding iron and tied up, doused with fuel and burnt on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres, while a crowd including children looked on. She was accused of using sorcery to kill a six-year-old boy.

. . .

Belief in sorcery and witchcraft is widespread in the poverty-stricken Commonwealth nation, which has a controversial Sorcery Act aimed at preventing attacks on people accused of practicing black magic.

[STer]

So here you have an example of the state protecting people from the abuses of religion. Interesting.

 

[Alan C.]

It would be interesting if they actually protected people from abuses of the State.

[STer]

 

It would be interesting if they actually protected people from abuses of the State.

 

I find it very interesting in either direction. It shows that the relationship between the State and religion can be quite complex.

[Alan C.]

They're just two groups trying to control others using different means.

[nathanm]

That kind of story should be dated 1513 rather than 2013.  Yikes!

[Rick Horton]

 

That kind of story should be dated 1513 rather than 2013.  Yikes!

 

Haha, totally!

 

[STer]

 

They're just two groups trying to control others using different means.

 

Even if you take that stance, it's still interesting the way they sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes are against each other in different times and places. It's a complicated interplay.