Lynchings in Congo as Penis Theft Panic Hits Capital

[Old Moparz]

See what happens if your local cable company refuses to extend service into your area because it's not profitable? This could have all been avoided if they had high speed internet to do a snopes search to see if it's true.   

KINSHASA
(Reuters)

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2290323220080422?rpc=64

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. Wat was left, was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

Now there's a very credible witness.......LOL

[Brock Samson]

George Bush shrunk mine.. 

[hutch]

Well, its the Congo,,,, so I guess someone is shrinking them down to a mesley 8 inches or so?

Sign me up.   

[TruckDriver]

George Bush shrunk mine.. 

Are you sure? Was it George or his bush

[twenty mike mike]

Remember the Church's Fried Chicken scare?   

[nh_mopar_fan]

<scratches Congo off vacation list>

[Brock Samson]

just so this thread ain't a total waste...   

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/ 

[andy74]

just so this thread ain't a total waste...   

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/ 

dman thats funny shit!

[Brock Samson]

just to show it's nothing new...

make up your own caption...

[Telvis]

Well, its the Congo,,,, so I guess someone is shrinking them down to a mesley 8 inches or so?

Sign me up.   

[NHCharger]

I've alway used the cold weather as an excuse, never tried the black magic one.