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Post Courier via AP
Bystanders watch as a woman accused of witchcraft is burned alive in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday.
Assailants stripped, tortured and bound a woman accused of witchcraft, then burned her alive in front of hundreds of witnesses in a Papua New Guinea town, police said Friday after one of the highest profile sorcery-related murders in this South Pacific island nation.
Some of the hundreds of bystanders took photographs of Wednesday's brutal slaying. Grisly pictures were published on the front pages of the country's biggest circulating newspapers, The National and Post-Courier. The prime minister, police and diplomats condemned the killing.
Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old who had a child, had been accused of sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who died in the hospital the day before, police spokesman Dominic Kakas said.
She was tortured with a hot iron rod, bound, doused in gasoline, then set alight on a pile of car tires and trash in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen, Kakas said.
Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba on Friday blasted Mount Hagen investigators by phone for failing to make a single arrest, Kakas said.
The public were apparently not cooperating with police and police carrying out the investigation were not working hard enough, Kakas said.
"He was very, very disappointed that there's been no arrest made as yet," Kakas said.
"The incident happened in broad daylight in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses and yet we haven't picked up any suspects yet. He was very, very curious about that and he blasted the investigators on the phone," Kakas added.
Kakas described the victim's husband as the "prime suspect." The husband had fled the province, Kakas said. Kakas said he did not know if there were a relationship between the husband and the dead boy's family.
Sorcery has traditionally been countered by sorcery in Papuan New Guinean culture. But responses to sorcery allegations have become increasingly violent in recent years.
Kakas said the death was the first sorcery-related murder in Papua New Guinea in a year.
Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga described the murder as "shocking and devilish."
"We are in the 21st century and this is totally unacceptable," Commissioner Kulunga said in a statement.
He suggested courts be established to deal with sorcery allegations, as an alternative to villagers dispensing justice.
Prime Minister Pete O'Neill said he had instructed police to use all available manpower to bring the killers to justice.
"It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with," O'Neill said.
The U.S. Embassy in the national capital Port Moresby issued a statement calling for a sustained international partnership to enhance anti-gender-based violence laws throughout the Pacific.
The embassy of Australia, Papua New Guinea's colonial ruler until independence in 1975 and now its biggest foreign aid donor, said "We join ... all reasonable Papua New Guineans in looking forward to the perpetrators being brought to justice."
The Associated Press
Leave a Comment:
That is pathetic they think this way! Whoever is involved in this horrible tragedy should be executed by a flamethrower.
Burning is terrible, but gosh, just sit back and count up all the times every day and stupid reasons we give for outcasting, labeling, and our press and government attacking people in our own society just for having simple personal beliefs. Don't get it? Read a bunch of comments on other stories all over MSN NBC. Watch the "news". Listen to the White House press briefings. Ya, we are such a bunch who believes in the rights of the individual.
I am all for freedom and individual rights however I don't think anyone has the right to torture and burn someone alive. I can't believe you would even say that.
Well, I didn't say that. You assumed I said that. Great job, now go ask mom for your afternoon pop tart.
And in other news, Christine Odonnell has cancelled her planned trip to New Guinea...
Believing in witches', in the 21st century what is wrong with these people. I'm glad we live in the United States of America where people only belief in devils and gods, and evil spirits. The bible tells me so.
These people's are still savages, it seems? Australia told them many years ago, that there was no such thing as sorcery. Some people just cannot accept the truth as that, the truth! Just look at our Republicans, facts don't matter to them. They never tell the truth!!! Their belief is simple, keep telling the same lie over, and over, and everyone will believe it.
Hey, i know, lets send some drones their way!!!
Evening D..where do you get your views from? Do you even know where Papua is as you are very uncertain if they are still savages or not? Australia told them there was no such thing as sorcery?? We did??? First I have heard of it. Papuan culture goes back thousands of years, our European history goes back 220 odd years....So what gives us the right to tell them, we know better...because we think we are superior? I assume you do realize the Papuan "fuzzy wuzzy angels" saved many American and Australians lives in WW2, carrying wounded soldiers over massive mountain ranges for days on end to save them from the Japanese. They fought along side us and died along side us....As for the truth, you would not know it if it hit you over the head.
If not for the U.S.A. they would be speaking Japanese right now. So don't sit there and act like they turned the tide in the Pacific Theatre because that dishonors the G.I.'s who actually did.
So when the Republican/TBaggers threatened to leave 'merica who knew that PNG would be their new home. I see they have started instituting their misogynistic "justice" against women, they really should come out of the closet and admit most of them were/are lovers of "men". ROFL!
Come on folks, read the story. The victim's husband is the primary suspect. He's fled the area. How is this story any different than any other family violence story the world over. Cause some superstitous withcraft mumbo jumbo was started to create distraction and confussion? The world is full of "God's Wrath" stereo typing for the ignorant or ill informed.
A little Monty Python-esque. "She's a witch, burn her!"
She turned me into a newt!
gingrich?
"She turned you into a newt?"
So cell phones don't make people modern? Huh?
This is typical religion. In a couple hundred years, these people will evolve into Christians.
Really...I didn't see any mention about religion in the article...did you? Or is that your biased coming out...kinda like burning a witch...
Religion is completely based on superstition. Witchcraft is based on superstition. Religion is the same as witchcraft, tough isn't it. Different flavor, same pudding.
So, if dog1 believes religion is based on superstition....6+billion people are wrong and you are right...interesting idea...
So, you are saying that Dog1 is the only person in the world who thinks that religion is superstition? Interesting idea...
Leroy, have someone reread my post to you...help me out here, don't see where I said that...
Interesting that Virgil is thinking that believing in invisable sky people, wearing pagan symbols about ones neck, magic water, sheep herder stories drawn from antiquity is not in fact superstition, but believing in witches is.
E-dog...how about you have an adult reread my posts to you...having trouble here finding where I said I believed in witches....
witches, warlocks, Big daddy, Junior, the Spook... it's all the same - just the names are changed to protect the guilty...
MYTHS and SUPERSTITION... of course, religion is for those who can't handle REALITY... but whatever...
"... of course, religion is for those who can't handle REALITY..."
Really, thanks for shedding your expert light on the subject...
glad you appreciated the enlightenment
They practice gun control.
Just when you thought there was hope for the human race - somebody does something like this.
May Karma show no mercy to those responsible for this act of utter barbarism.
Barbarians. We were over that sort of nonsense over 300 years ago in this country.
You may want to re-think that Bruce.
that's TRUE leroy - there are STILL idiots who handle snakes and talk in tongues along with other idiocy...(of course, it's RELIGION...)
I am so totally amused by these claims of "speaking in tongues" because the fools who claim this, or claim to have witnessed it don't have the slightest idea what it actually means.
It does NOT mean to make strange sounds like a vocal seizure, nor does it mean to spontaniously speak a previously unknown language.
"To speak in tongues" means to speak one's native language and yet be understood by those who do not.
The $hit that goes on in those "revivalist" tents is just an act - silly at best, but closer to pitiable, because the people are so desparate to believe in something, anything, that they will use their "snake oil" and claim it really works.
She should have just made that sandwich...
time to stop the aid they rec until they come out of the dark ages....
Yes, remove all tax exemptions and force religion into the light.
won't work - all it would do is to make them bitch and whine incessantly about being "persecuted"...
fork to late they already do that
I know - I thought the sarcasm was obvious...
more common than one would want to believe. If you have the intestinal fortitude you can find multiple videos of burnings that have taken place over the past decade. Reading about it and seeing one happen on video is a head turning experience.
"The U.S. Embassy...issued a statement calling for a sustained international partnership to enhance anti-gender-based violence laws throughout the Pacific."
Boy, that will really get their attention.
How about putting PNG on the no travel list for US tourists....
for myself, I go places "civilized". Thailand comes prominently to mind...
Sounds like New Guinea is the next candidate for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. This bunch will fit in perfectly with the rest of those despotic, abusive nations sitting in judegment of the civilized world.
WTF?!!!! In 2013 SERIOUSLY!!!
You just can't argue with forward thinking folks like those in New Guinea.
I think in this case it wasn't fear of the unknown. I think the people who stood by watching and videotaping this atrocity were afraid of the person or persons responsible. I can't imagine the pain this woman suffered. I hope at least one person who witnessed this is tortured in some way in his or her life ... karma, and all that, you know.
Hopefully Obama will issue a Presidential edict and have the witch killers become illegals in America. They will act as a counterbalance to the drug dealers he just let stay.
When you find a witch you burn it. It's science.
Note to self..... No vacation travel to Papua New Guinea.
She turned me into a newt... I got better.