Imagining Witchcraft

Lest you thought that persecution of witches was last seen in Salem, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has produced a fascinating and disturbing research paper on modern-day witchcraft allegations. These charges, levied primarily against women (particularly the elderly) as well as children, can result in horrifying abuse, including torture, starvation, abandonment, and even death. Contemporary claims of witchcraft circle the globe, from Bolivia to Cambodia to the Democratic Republic of Congo; from Ghana to Haiti to India.

The paper examines witchcraft allegations in refugee camps and situations of refugee repatriation and integration, drawing an interesting link between situations of crisis and witchhunts. In Salem, the witch trials were situated in military and political crises similar to those faced by refugees today, as the town sat near the front lines of an armed conflict between colonials and Native Americans. So it is that we see similar allegations in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo that have suffered through decades of war. Contemporary witchcraft accusations often offer those in situations of severe crisis -- be it civil war, extreme poverty or environmental disaster -- an opportunity to express feelings of envy, fear, hatred, and jealousy in particularly violent ways.

So what's the solution? Apart from the obvious and difficult task of moderating crisis situations, legislatures can outlaw witchcraft allegations and violence against those accused of being witches and international organizations and NGOs can raise awareness among their staff of the dangers of such claims and consequent need for protection. Witchcraft accusations should be taken seriously as grounds for asylum, given the very real persecution faced by subjects of witchhunts.

On February 22

On this day in ...
... 1680, or perhaps 2 days earlier, Catherine Deshayes was burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft on the Place de Grève in Paris. A "sorceress" about 40 years old, the woman known as La Voisin (left) "practised medicine, especially midwifery, procured abortion, and provided love powders and poisons." She was among many persons prosecuted in L'Affaire des poisons, or Poison Affair, a fatally hysteric phase during the reign of Louis XIV.
... 1940, in Lhasa, Tibet, a 4-year-old boy named Tenzin Gyatso (below right) was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama. (photo credit) In 1950 he "was called upon to assume full political power as Head of State and Government when Tibet was threatened by the might of China." Four years later he was forced into exile in India, and has not been able to return to his country since. He received the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of

the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people.

(Prior February 22 posts here and here.)

On May 19

On this day in ...
... 2006, the U.N. body charged with monitoring states parties' compliance with the Convention Against Torture, the Committee Against Torture, released a conclusions and recommendations, including the closure of Guantánamo, the camp on the island of Cuba where the United States has held suspected terrorists without trial since January 2002. My ASIL Insight on the committee's recommendation is here.
... 1536, Anne Boleyn was beheaded in the Tower of London on orders of her husband, the English King Henry VIII. Three years earlier Henry, angry that he and his 1st wife, Catherine, never had a male heir, had forced an international schism in order to obtain a divorce and marry the already pregnant Anne (right). No son was born to the couple, and so Henry had her arrested, tried on charges including witchcraft and adultery, and executed. Their daughter, Elizabeth I, would rule Britain for nearly 45 years.

"Saudi woman faces death for witchcraft"

The headline says it all. Human Rights Watch broke the story about condemned prisoner Fawza Falih Muhammad Ali earlier this week, when it published this letter to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud. And Judith Weingarten, who's guest-blogged here at IntLawGrrls, has more here at her Zenobia blog.

On October 29, ...

... 1390, Jeanne de Brigue became the 1st person convicted of witchcraft in a secular proceeding before the Parlement de Paris. At trial she confessed, before and after having been tortured, to having invoked a demon. Before this, her skill at divining, or finding things, had been enlisted at times by courts seeking to solve larcenies. de Brigue and another convicted woman would be burned at the stake in August of the following year.
... 1938, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (left) was born in Monrovia, Liberia, into a family descended from those onetime slaves in the United States who went on to colonize Liberia in the 19th century. Following undergraduate study in Monrovia, she went to the United States, where she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado and a master's degree in public administration from Harvard. She returned to Liberia and entered politics, but went into exile during periods of dictatorship and political turmoil. In 2005 Sirleaf, known like many 1st woman leaders as the "Iron Lady," was elected President of Liberia.