Random Other Places Besides Salem, That Killed People For Being 'Witches' (14 items)

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  (#3) In Papua New Guinea, Women Suspected Of Witchcraft Are Still Burned Alive

  When executing a suspected “witch,” people always go over the top. It’s never “we shot the witch in the head”; it's always something like this story of a rural Papua New Guinea woman who was “bound and gagged, tied to a log, and set ablaze on a pile of tires.” The explanation given for many of the executions of these “witches” is that they’re “scapegoats for someone’s unexplained death,” because obviously, the only way to deal with your grief is to light someone on fire atop a bunch of tires. This is shockingly common in Papua New Guinea; over fifty people were killed in 2007 alone for “sorcery.” Many regions of the country still live according to traditional beliefs, which is how some citizens come to blame witches for the AIDS-related deaths of 6.7 million people. 
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  (#9) Over 3,000 People Were Lynched In Tanzania For Witchcraft... In Six Years

  From 2005 to 2011, over 3,000 people were lynched in Tanzania for being witches. That’s more than 500 a year. Turns out that many older women were accused of being witches on account of having “red eyes,” which happens when you’re so poor you have to burn cow dung for heat instead of wood. Often, these women are murdered following the death of a relative as “payback.” The families “visit soothsayers to determine the cause of death and are often told that witchcraft is responsible.” Of course. According to a member of an organization that's trying to protect the rights of the local elderly: "You cannot separate witchcraft beliefs from the issue of development. The more developed people are, the less they believe in such things." 
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  (#11) Evangelical Pastors Accused 15,000 Children Of Witchcraft In Nigeria In Just Nine Years

  After a local pastor accused his son of being a witch in 2009, a Nigerian boy’s father “tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes." Other children accused of witchcraft were set on fire. Unfortunately, this is all too common, as over 1,000 children were murdered for perceived "witchcraft" between 2000 and 2009 in Nigeria alone. During that same time period, over 15,000 children in two of Nigeria's 36 states were accused of being witches. Some blame these witch hunts the rise of evangelical Christianity in the country.
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  (#4) Congolese Children Accused Of Witchcraft Are Thrown Out Of Their Homes

  Of the 25,000 to 50,000 homeless children on the streets of the large city of Kinshasa, roughly a majority were kicked out of their homes because they were accused of witchcraft. That would be enough people to fill a basketball or hockey stadium. These numbers are from 2006, not some distant century. This isn’t just limited to poor kids, either, as “children who do well in school can also be accused of witchcraft.” To make things even worse (which, frankly doesn’t seem like it should be possible) scam artists tied to evangelical churches charge small fees to “investigate the children and confirm they are possessed… keeping them without food for days, beating and torturing them.”
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  (#10) Over 100 Children Abused For Being "Witches" In Britain

  From 2004 to 2014, 148 cases of child abuse were reported to the Metropolitan Police of Greater London on account of the children being “witches.” Parents believed their children were possessed by the devil or other evil spirits, and didn’t know what else to do. Some of these cases have been horrific, such as a child who “had chili peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her.” What makes it especially scary is that, while the big cases get on TV, this abuse goes on in homes all the time and no one hears about it. Often, this abuse is "supported by someone who within the community has portrayed themselves as an authority on faith and belief." 
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  (#8) Saudi Arabia Doesn't Even Let You Take A Rigged Witchcraft Test, They Just Fake Your Confession

  In 2008, Fawza Falih, an illiterate Saudi Arabian woman, was forced to sign a confession that she used witchcraft to make one man impotent. Her conviction was "on the basis of the written statements of witnesses who said that she had bewitched them." Falih wasn’t even allowed to attend most of her hearing. She didn't even get her confession read to her. After an appeals court stayed her execution, law courts “imposed the death sentence again, arguing it would be in the public interest."

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