I AM more than sure I am not the only one who must be increasingly becoming concerned over the rise in killings of old people in Zambia on mere suspicion of practicing witchcraft.
Admittedly this concern about persecution of persons accused of witchcraft practices have long been in Zambia for many years and the majority of suspects were elderly women.
But in Zambia even men have become targets of witchcraft accusations and often resulting in deaths like the recently reported 95 year old Mpika man who was shot dead by unknown assassins for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
True, the persecution of elderly women suspected to be witches is also predominantly widespread in Zambia.
It is unfortunate that these killers do not know that torturing and various forms of violence against elderly women accused of witchcraft without evidence against them implies major infringements of their fundamental Human Rights as enshrined in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stipulates that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
It is against this background that I wish to make an earnest appeal to our police to double up their efforts in stopping this nonsense.
After all, our law is clear on accusations, that suspects are deemed innocent until proved otherwise in the courts of law.
So where do these killers get the power from to act in the manner they are doing, taking away innocent lives without any proper cause?
Enough is enough. Let us see some sanity in this regard.
JOSEPHINE MUDULA
