Posted on 04/22/2008 8:23:11 PM PDT by LonghornFreeper
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)
Note to self: Next time visiting the Congo, don't forget to pack your tuxedo. Because if I'm going to be impotent I sure as hell want to look impotent!
the Castanza Effect goes worldwide
Can I get that covered by Medicare, doc?
Ah, the “noble savages” that the left so loves...
So I asked myself: “Why are there so many penis thieves in Africa (allegedly)?”
And channeling Willie Sutton, I answered myself: “’Cause that’s where...”
Viva Viagra!
manhood is constantly threatened no matter what culture eh???!!!
There’s a song in here somewhere. Sadly, it’s probably in Urdu or something.
Mine disapeared once, shortly after I peed on an electric fence. I think it may have touched the fence. I'm sure happy it returned.
I'm guessing it's "Red Magic". They must be importing adulterated junk and/or food from the PRC.
The Congo's ambulance service has been stretched thin.
"Hillary takes no prisoners."
LOL!
“I...I swear...it’s never happened to me before.”
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
“If you keep playing with it, it’ll fall right off.”
And that favorite of grandpas everywhere...
“Who’s got your winky? Who’s got your winky?” [as he demonstrates a “winky” snagged between his forefinger and middle finger]
Oh, wait. I think that was only MY grandpa.
Yeah, it's a nutcracker.
Operation Helen Thomas is working.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. Wonder if Rev. Wright would prefer living in the Congo having his penis stolen by witches to having a multi-million house in Chicago?
Pure ENVY.
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