Witchcraft

The UN human rights chief on March 10 strongly condemned a surge in attacks in east Africa on albinos, whose body parts are often used for witchcraft.
      
The statement came after police in Tanzania arrested seven suspects over a brutal weekend assault in which a six-year-old albino boy's hand was hacked off with a machete.
      

As I wrote in my previous piece, 2014 was a horrible year for Turkey, as the bitter political war in the country led to a downward spiral for democracy. The worse news is that 2015 will probably not be any better, for the dynamics that initiated the downward spiral seem quite persistent and even well established; the government now has many "enemies" that it wants to crush or subdue.

A 44-year-old woman who posed as a witch doctor to con victims out of more than 23,500 euros was on Thursday arrested in Trikala, central Greece.

The woman, who claimed to have magical healing powers and performed exorcism rituals, was set to appear before a prosecutor.

Hundreds of children are believed to have been kidnapped in Africa and brought to Britain for brutal voodoo rituals, a UN watchdog said, urging London to do more to combat the scourge.