Penis theft panic hits city.. Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:06pm EDT http://www.reuters.com/article/oddl...e=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=22&sp=true 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.
Glad to see that censorship is working overtime here as well. I think I shall retire from this site since my/our liberties have been/are being breached. No use fighitng the good fight in a BS location. Chalk one more up for the bad guys. Enjoy ya'll good luck if any hazards shall come your way, see ya'll in the compound or the after life.
Would you want your children to read that??? I know I wouldn't but everybody has their limitations and what they will allow their children to view. Not trying to be prude or nothing because I assure you I'm far from it. I have probably sent more threads on purpose to the Inferno than anybody else on this site. Just ask anybody that has been here awhile, I'm good at it and know how to push the envelope of this Site's Forum's. There is a place and time for cussing and the General Discussion Forum is not it. Sorry you feel the way you do. I can assure you if want a place to ****en' cuss, than go to the Inferno, that's the place to do it. It has nothing to do with censorship, by no means. This place was built on the protection of Freedom of Speech but that doesn't give you the right to cuss in front of my children or anybody else's, fair enough Moderator's if I have stepped out of line, please correct or tell me to **** off
Also on the general idea of family friendliness. Freedom of speech suffers from the same limitations as swinging one's fist does, that being your fist better stop before it gets to my nose. (Or or your noise before it gets to the kid's ears.)
Let me get this straight, your rights and liberties were infringed upon because the auto-editing program in the software edited your bad language on a family friendly forum? Is that what you are saying? My house must be a B.S. location also, because if you ever spoke in that language in front of my family you would not be welcome there either. You need to keep in mind that we have people from all walks of life viewing the General Discussion forum, including several ladies that we would not willingly subject to such language. Now the Inferno is different, and it is not viewable by lurkers. So if you have something to say that is not appropriate for General Discussion then start a thread in the Inferno. Then nobody will think twice, and those that would be offended will will know in advance that the material is not appropriate in the General Forum.
