07 November 2009
http://www.paganrightsalliance.org/press.html
To: International Humanist and Ethical Union High Commissioner – United Nations Human Rights Council
In October 2009 the following statement on Witchcraft in Africa was presented by the International Humanist and Ethical Union to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
/”Witchcraft is still widely practiced in many countries in Africa by witchdoctors who often use human body parts in their spells. Some witchdoctors employ gangs of young men to attack and kill victims, often young children, for their body parts, which are frequently removed while the victim is still alive. An estimated 300 people are killed each year in South Africa alone as a result of this practice.”/ [0]
The call for the /”fight against the twin evils of those practicing witchcraft and those claiming to find and cure witches in Africa”/, encourages not only the suppression of those using the excuse of so-called “witchcraft” to commit criminal acts, it also has the unfortunate effect of encouraging African governments to suppress Witchcraft as identified by actual self-identified adherents of the Craft and Religion of Witchcraft.
Many South Africans already openly identify themselves as Witches. Witches are already a visible and recognizable religious minority in Southern Africa. We have our own religious council, represented on various interfaith bodies, and we have our own government appointed religious marriage officers.
A blanket and unqualified call for the suppression of “Witchcraft” in Africa is a call for the suppression of religious belief, something our own constitution protects under freedom of religion and association clauses in our Bill of Rights.
The right to believe in Witchcraft, as a bone-fide spiritual practice, that is in no way associated with or implicated in any criminal activities such as those cited here and elsewhere, is legally protected in only one country in Africa – South Africa.
In South Africa, self-identified Witches are legally entitled to practice our religion, identified as ‘Witchcraft’. South African Witches are not criminals. No South African Witch has ever been implicated in or accused of engaging in illegal, criminal, or violent actions as identified by the IHEU.
Actual self-identified Witches in South Africa are being, and will continue to be perceived by African society in general, as complicit by accusation and prejudicial belief alone, in the perpetration of heinous crimes against humanity, simply because ‘witchcraft’ is most often used as a convenient scapegoat for illegal or criminal activity by people who
do not actually self-identify as Witches themselves.
In South Africa, where human mutilations are infrequently committed and blamed on ‘witches’, the actual perpetrators of these crimes have never self-identified as Witches, and have never identified what they do as Witchcraft. In fact, those found guilty in South African courts of law, have identified themselves as traditional herbalists (Nyanga’s), not as Witches! Traditional African magic as practiced by these Nyanga’s is not called “Witchcraft”.
Statistics provided to the UN by the IHEU regarding human mutilations in South Africa (300 + a year) is incorrect. Between 1992 and 2001 the SAPS Occult-related crime unit investigated in excess of 300 cases of muti-related crimes. Muti murders are listed statistically as murder. No official statistics for the number of human mutilations in S.A. have been published in South Africa in the last five years and so there is no way the statement as given can be true.
SAPRA is concerned that the UN may be asked to accept incorrect statements as evidence.
South Africa has a higher incidence of violence perpetrated against alleged “witches” (innocent victims of accusation) than it does of “muti-murders” – human mutilation and the trade in human body parts.
The South African Pagan Rights Alliance urges extreme caution in condemning an existing religious minority in the name of ‘human rights’. The International Humanist and Ethical Union is unwittingly perpetuating an even greater injustice – one that finds its roots in a far older religious campaign of suppression; one equally driven by the Christian churches of the time.
The continuing blanket use of ‘witchcraft’ accusation to cover criminal acts such as murder, human mutilation and the trade in human body parts, crimes committed by criminals attempting to justify their criminal and nefarious activities by appealing to “belief”, must not be used to sanction further violence against actual practitioners of Witchcraft in our own country.
SAPRA calls on the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the United Nations Human Rights Council to cease calling for the suppression and elimination of Witchcraft in Africa.
Reference*:
[0] *IHEU calls for better education and policing to eliminate
witchcraft and witch “cures” in Africa*
<http://www.iheu.org/iheu-calls-better-education-and-policing-eliminate-witchcraft-and-witch-cures-africa>
Joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union – UN
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: 12th Session (14 Sept — 2 October 2009)
