Posted on 04/23/2008 4:36:27 PM PDT by Stoat
By Joe Bavier
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.
Rumors 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.
Saudi Arabia to execute woman for 'witchcraft' (One man claimed she had made him impotent.)
Zimbabwe's Harry Potter (After 107 year ban, Mugabe legalizes witchcraft and wizardry)
Zim Bogus traditional healer held (Told woman to hire mermaids, use bull 'privates' to find car)
‘cough’
I’s a good thing I’m dyslexic or I would’ve fainted.
‘sometimes it hides like a frightened turtle’
Hehe...cue up the “shrinkage” pic...
They have infiltrated the inner circle of both major political party's in The U.S.
I searched titles and keywords....nothing came up :-(
Hahaha, and to think Jimmy Carter STILL hasn’t noticed his are missing.
I take it these folks don't have email.
Snort...NO, those people are from Kenya!
LOL! Just watched Shepherd Smith read this story with a straight face innuendos and all.
Now, we’d probably just laugh this off as people in Congo being a bunch of rubes who have never seen the shrinkage episode of Seinfeld and probably just read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Penis Snatching (”Peno Reducto!”), but just the other day I saw at least two diaries at the Daily Kos entitled “Someone stole my penis!!11!! Look how tiny it is!!” I didn’t click on them, though, out of fear they had pictures.
Question: What is the sorcerer Karl Rove doing with the penises he magically stole from the nutroots?
Frank J
Well, screwing up the dems of course.
Bill Clinton would accuse Shrillary of being this kind of evil witch just before each of his randy outings...... just think of every Clintonista “bimbo eruption” as a marker for episodes of Shrillary’s witchcraft shrinking BJ’s wee-wee.....and he had to go “out” to try to reclaim his manhood....... Hillary does have that effect upon men.
Shrinking in Kinshasa.
Why did HRC buy TV time in Africa?
When Barak is president, he could prevent this by proposing legislation for strap-on funding to Africa.
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