Africas shameful secret

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Africas shameful secret
Cover Art Witches Gasp by Luke Martin
TouchStone Advocacy 2009
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These men, women and children were accused of
practicing Witchcraft between 2000 and 2008. They
were harassed, assaulted, murdered or banished
from their homes by relatives, friends and
neighbors.

• Amoni Mokoena (67)
• Lina Magagula
• Matome Molele (67)
• Grace Chabalala (80)
• Hlalaphi Malandula (45)
• Mphatsi Mazibuko
• August Micas Khoza (65)
• Madudu Shandu (57)
• Bongekile Zungu (59)
• Ntombizanele Combo (45)
• Sibulele Combo (6)

• Simon Magagula (30)
• Mamlothana Ndoda
• Manqoma Novumile Tyebisa
• Makhemu Ngema (65)
• Mbhejile Sibiya (28)
• Hlengiwe Ntuli (20)
• Samukelisiwe Masikane (7)
• Khanyisane Ngema (6)
• Siyabonga Masikane (aged 3)
• Maria Ngcobo (76)

NONE of these victims were or are Witches!
This is by no means a complete list of victims of
Witchcraft accusations in South Africa. Many
reported cases do not mention the victims names.
Most incidences of Witchcraft-related violence
are not reported as Witch-hunts.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates
in the world!
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South African law prohibits making accusations of
Witchcraft.But South African politicians keep
making accusations of Witchcraft publicly on
party-political platforms

• It is better when you have an enemy that you
  don't know. If you know the enemy, then it is
  more difficult. In Zulu we refer to a form of
  witchcraft called ukuphehla amanzi, where your
  enemy would mix dirt from your body in a calabash
  and stick a spear into the mixture to cause you
  sharp body pains. When the witch is a family
  member, we know that it's more dangerous than an
  enemy from outside." Zacob Zuma
• On 15 December 2008 Jacob Zuma, President of the
  African National Congress (ANC), addressing
  thousands of ANC supporters in Dan Qeqe stadium
  in Zwide, Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape), called
  the leaders of the newly formed rival political
  party, the Congress of the People (COPE),
  Witches.
• On the same day, Ntombizanele Combo (45) and her
  grand daughter Sibulele Combo (6) were burned to
  death by two men in a Christmas day Witch-hunt in
  Timane village near Dutywa (Eastern Cape).
• "Our mothers are taken, house to house, they are
  also paraded on TV, these people are performing
  witchcraft with our mothers....They are liars.
  You can't have respect for people who use older
  people in that fashion. Tokyo Sexwale
• January 2009. Sexwale was speaking at an ANC
  rally in Zwide township, outside Port Elizabeth.

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The South African Press Code determines that the
press should avoid discriminatory or denigratory
references to people's religion and refrain from
referring to a person's religion in a prejudicial
or pejorative context.

• When a border collie puppy, which had been buried
  alive with two spears inserted into its body, was
  discovered at Camps Drift near the Msunduzi
  River, The Witness reported that a well-known
  Imbali-based traditional healer Schoeman Xulu
  viewed the discovery as the worst form of
  witchcraft. Xulu is quoted as saying, The
  perpetrators were trapping someone to death.
  Witches use black chickens and dogs and colourful
  candles to kill their targets. I feel sorry for
  whoever the practice was directed at." July 2008
• When a traditional herbalist suspected his rival
  of being more popular than him, The Vaal Weekly
  reported the unnamed inyanga as saying "I have
  caught many witches here in my yard and you will
  be surprised who does these thing as these are
  usually trusted community members who become
  monsters at night... Evil exists, what that witch
  is doing to the child is evil and must be stopped
  as soon as possible, she is not an inyanga but a
  killer". August 2008.

But the South African press claims the right to
defame Witches through negatively stereotyping
Witchcraft by publishing fabricated hearsay as
evidence.
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The South African Bill of Rights prohibits hate
speech against religious minorities.But South
African intellectuals promote hatred of Witches
by defining them as a threat to society.

• The Ralushai Commissions report defined the term
  Witch to mean a person who,
• through sheer malice, either consciously or
  subconsciously, employs magical means to inflict
  all manner of evil on their fellow human beings.
  They destroy property, bring disease or
  misfortune and cause death, often entirely
  without provocation to satisfy their inherent
  craving for evil doing. 1995.
• "A witch is a person who is endowed with powers
  of causing illness or ill luck or death to the
  person that he wants to destroy. Professor
  Ralushai. 1999.
• The Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill define
  Witchcraft as
• the secret use of muti, zombies, spells,
  spirits, magic powders, water, mixtures, etc, by
  any person with the purpose of causing harm,
  damage, sickness to others or their property.
  2007.

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Throughout Africa Witches are feared and reviled.

• In Malawi in March 2007 five children between the
  ages of 2 and 11 were found naked outside their
  home. It is reported the children claimed to have
  been involved in a witchcraft plane crash.
• In Kenya in May 2008 Kenyan police arrested 86
  people in connection with killing 11 elderly
  people suspected of being witches.
• In Nigeria Evangelical pastors accuse children of
  being Witches and increasing numbers of children
  are being forced to live on the streets as a
  result of being banished from their homes.
• In January 2009 Tanzania banned Witchcraft.
• In February 2009 Gambian authorities rounded up
  over 1,000 people and forced them to drink
  hallucinogens in a witch-hunt campaign.

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The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights
declares that every human being shall be entitled
to respect for his or her life and integrity of
his or her person, and that all forms of
exploitation and degradation shall be
prohibited.The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights guarantees that everyone charged with a
penal offence has the right to be presumed
innocent until proved guilty according to law in
a public trial at which he or she has had all the
guarantees necessary for his or her defense.
If you are a Witch, or accused of being a Witch
in Africa, no matter what your human rights are,
you will NOT receive a fair trial, you will NOT
be afforded an opportunity to protest your
innocence, and you WILL suffer the consequences
of centuries of cultural and religious prejudice
and fear against Witchcraft.
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Witch-hunts are motivated by beliefs. Beliefs
lead to action. Beliefs that instill fear often
motivate violence in response to a perceived
threat, whether or not that threat is real of
merely imagined.Maintaining and reinforcing
discriminatory and prejudicial definitions of
Witchcraft promotes violence.Prejudice against
Witchcraft in Africa is motivated by cultural and
religious beliefs that are based on false and
defamatory urban legends.Cultural practices and
religious beliefs that promote the murder of
innocents on the basis of belief must not be
tolerated in any society!
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Freedom of belief and religion does not mean
freedom to falsely accuse and persecute
others.Those who use their beliefs to motivate
or justify prejudice, discrimination,
intimidation, assault, arson and murder against
suspected Witches are guilty of crimes against
humanity.

• Ubuntu is the essence of being human. It speaks
  of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is
  inextricably bound up in yours. I am human
  because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it
  speaks about compassion. A person with ubuntu is
  welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing
  to share. Such people are open and available to
  others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of
  others, do not feel threatened that others are
  able and good, for they have a proper
  self-assurance that comes from knowing that they
  belong in a greater whole. They know that they
  are diminished when others are humiliated,
  diminished when others are oppressed, diminished
  when others are treated as if they were less than
  who they are. The quality of ubuntu gives people
  resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge
  still human despite all efforts to dehumanize
  them.
• Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

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WITCHES ARE PEOPLE!

• In Africa the only people who use the word
  Witch to define themselves are South African
  citizens who call their religion Witchcraft.
• In South Africa Witches constitute a small but
  visible religious minority.
• In 2007 a majority of South African Witches
  elected to reclaim the terms Witch and
  Witchcraft.
• South African Witches define Witchcraft as a
  Pagan mystery religion that employs the use of
  sympathetic magic, ritual, herbalism and
  divination.
• We demand our constitutional right to freedom of
  belief and religion.
• We demand the right to live and work in safety.
• We demand the right to equality and dignity.

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Cover Art
In a time when old women are still falsely
accused of the most heinous crimes, the
protagonist holds aloft the head of the artist in
her attempt to illumine the breathless darkness
of gender inequality and social injustice.The
mistakes of youth put behind, experience at hand,
this solitudinarian recluse, at the dusk of her
life, allows even persecution to fall into its
place, capable of processing everything in the
light of acquired wisdom. She is the spiritual
mystery of the querent seeking clarity in the
dark nature of man, where the inexplicable
sacrament of ageing and oppressive twists of
culture becomes entangled, giving rise to a curse
and a motive for persecutory injustices.
Witches Gasp by Luke Martin
Unstoppable, unmasked she presses on, fighting
for her rights, to the very last gasp.
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30 days of Advocacy against Witch-hunts29 March
to April 27 2009Speak out against religious
discriminationand end Witchcraft-related
Violence in Africa.
Presentation prepared by Damon Leffon behalf of
TouchStone Advocacy Download a free copy of A
Pagan Witches TouchStone

• This TouchStone Advocacy campaignis supported
  bythe South African Pagan Council and the South
  African Pagan Rights Alliance