Author Archive | Wicasta

from The Wild Hunt, Jason Pitzl-Waters The United States has a strong ethic of not interfering with the internal affairs of religious organizations. The recent unanimous Supreme Court decision affirming the right of “ministerial exception” sent a clear signal that our government is limited in what in can demand or regulate. In America, religious institutions [...]

It began with the trial and execution of an eight-year-old girl for witchcraft in the spring of 1630. Compelled to name others involved in an alleged nighttime dance with the devil in the town of Oberkirchen, the confession of young Christine Teipel sparked a wave of fingerpointing and subsequent trials. Within just three months, 58 people, [...]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi authorities have executed a woman who had been convicted of practicing magic and sorcery. The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place Monday, but gave no details on the woman’s crime. The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested [...]

A Sudanese man has been beheaded in Saudi Arabia after being accused of sorcery and witchcraft, the country’s interior ministry confirmed on Monday. The man, Abdul Hamid bin Hussein Mostafa al-Fakki, had been arrested in 2005 and charged with “witchcraft” two years later. He was sentenced to death in the western city of Medina after [...]

Two men in Bhadrachalam, India, Vade Dharmaiah and Sunnam Magaiah of Vissapuram village, were burned alive in the late hours of Friday night, Sept. 9th, on suspicion that the two men were practicing witchcraft. According to reports, an elderly gentleman named Vade Pasaiah (80) died of old age on August 30th. Another person, Vade Mutaiah [...]

NIGERIA – A man and a woman, were yesterday sentenced to 2 years imprisonment over an alleged bewitching of a woman by the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Warji Local Government Area of Bauchi State. Ibrahim Shehu Ganye, a 43 year-old man and Adama Mamuda, a 45 year-old woman, were both accused of casting a witchcraft [...]

UGANDA – Mr Benon Alyao, 73, sits on a plastic chair at Lira Central Police Station with a plaster on his head. Two other middle-aged men sit next to him. In their company is an elderly woman. The four look pensive and disillusioned. They have been left homeless after being banished from a place they [...]

An albino boy who went missing on his way home from school may have been snatched for a tribal sacrifice in South Africa, it has been reported today. The disappearance of Sibisuso Nhatave, 14, prompted a police search in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal amid fears that he had been a victim of black magic. Albinism, [...]