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God Gives Bad Advice AGAIN

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:39:33 +0000

Dallas Woman Says “Signs From God” Led Her To Shoot, Kill Co-Worker (Wendy Hundley/The Dallas Morning News; Aug 27)

A Dallas woman told police that God told her to shoot her longtime co-worker Wednesday morning at a Carrollton pest control business.

Theresa Gail Robbins, 48, was arrested on suspicion of killing Greg Brasch, a McKinney husband and father who was described as “friend to anybody,” including the woman accused of shooting him once in the chest with a handgun.

“Afterwards she put the gun down and didn’t threaten anyone else,” Carrollton police Officer Dustin Bartram said Thursday. “She put the gun down and sat in another co-worker’s office and waited for police to arrive.”

Brasch, 57, was taken to Baylor Medical Center at Carrollton, where he was pronounced dead.

Robbins was been charged with first-degree murder and was being held Thursday at the Dallas County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

On Thursday, Brasch’s family was trying to understand the killing.

“This was all out of the blue,” said Howard Max, Brasch’s brother-in-law. “We think she just snapped.”

He said Brasch, a native of Australia who had lived in Texas since 1985, was a sales manager at Bizzy Bees pest control, where Robbins was office manager.

Max said they both worked at the business about 13 years and were friends. He said Brasch recently offered to let Robbins sell an antique sewing machine on eBay and keep the money.

He described Brasch as an outgoing, likable man who was a “friend to anybody.”

A woman who answered the phone Thursday at Bizzy Bees declined to comment.

Police were called to the business in the 2800 block of Trinity Square Drive shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday. They found Robbins sitting in an office, where she was arrested without incident.

When an officer asked her what happened, she said, “I got signs from God, he told me to distribute the world order information,” according to the arrest-warrant affidavit.

She told the officer that Brasch was her “closest friend.”

When asked why she shot him, Robbins replied, “I was expecting someone else to come in” and that God told her to shoot.

The document also states that Robbins indicated she was taking medication for depression.

Robbins’ Facebook page shows a range of emotions in the evening before the shooting.

“Today I am happy, because I thought of you,” Robbins posted at 6:57 p.m. Tuesday.

“I am really confused and I pray for guidance,” she wrote at midnight.

“Paranoia big destroya going to bed,” Robbins wrote in her last posting at 12:03 a.m. Wednesday.

Brasch is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and three children….

If that isn’t enough to convince you *not* to listen to “God” when you think you hear him/her/it offering you guidance, check out the entries I posted on March 11, 2009; March 20, 2009; April 25, 2009; June 19, 2009; and Nov 17, 2009.

Maybe I Came Back Too Soon….

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:16:36 +0000

I mean, really – how long DO I have to stay away before stories like these become very rare things – or at least stop being a continuing daily plague?

Albino Girl Beheaded In Swaziland “For Witchcraft” (NineMSN; Aug 23)

An albino girl from Swaziland has been shot dead and then beheaded for the sake of witchcraft, according to reports.

Banele Nxumalo, 11, was on her way home with friends, after washing clothes and bathing in a river, when she was grabbed by a man wearing a balaclava.

The attacker shot Banele in the back and then dragged her away, right in front of her friends.

A short time later the girl’s headless body was found upriver, the UK Telegraph newspaper reports.

Police believe the murder is the latest in a series of ritualistic killings targeting albinos in Sub-Saharan Africa.

People living with the rare skin pigmentation apparently are concentrated in this part of the world.

But they often fall prey to human traffickers because black magic practitioners use their blood and body parts for good luck potions.

One such witch doctor was jailed in Tanzania last week for abducting and attempting to sell a live albino man.

Alaskan Muslim Gets 8 Years In Prison For Hit List (The Associated Press; Aug 23)

A man from a remote Alaska community who compiled a hit list of targets he believed were enemies of Islam was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison.

Paul Rockwood Jr., along with his wife, Nadia Rockwood, faced counts of lying to FBI agents when questioned about the list of 20 targets in May. They pleaded guilty to domestic terrorism last month, the first time such charges were brought in Alaska under the Patriot Act. The law was enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The length of Paul Rockwood’s sentence was the maximum penalty for the crime. Nadia Rockwood, 36, who holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and United Kingdom, was sentenced to five years probation. She will be allowed to return to Britain and take care of the couple’s 4-year-old child. She is due to give birth in November.

Authorities said Paul Rockwood, 35, of King Salmon, converted to Islam about a decade ago and followed the teachings of a cleric who supports acts of terrorism and espouses hatred for the United States. The hit list included members of the military and media.

Rockwood, who worked for the National Weather Service in King Salmon, an isolated town of a few hundred people, converted to Islam in late 2001 or 2002 when he and his wife lived in Virginia. He was enamored with the teachings of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, prosecutors said. The couple moved to Alaska in 2006.

Federal authorities say Rockwood did far more than make a list. He considered the possibility of shooting people in the head. He began researching how to make explosive components, construct remote triggering devices and put together a bomb that could be delivered by any mail carrier, court documents say.

At Monday’s sentencing, Judge Ralph Beistline had harsh words for Rockwood and his wife, describing their actions as “cowardly” and “despicable,” and designed to “undermine the rule of law in the free society that protected them.”

“They have betrayed everything it means to be an American,” Beistline said….

Thirteen Injured As Islamic Sects Clash In Nigeria (Tunde Sanni/This Day; Aug 23)

IBADAN, Nigeria: Thirteen people were yesterday injured while houses and Mosques were vandalised in an inter-Islamic sects combustion in Sabo area of Ibadan over the control of the Sabo area between the Izalla and the Darikat Islamic sects.

By the time the skirmish subsided, blood stains and carcasses of vandalized buildings littered the area as weapons wielding youths patrolled the area, in search of rival sect members to attack.

But for the combined efforts of the State Police Command, the crisis would have escalated to the entire community as shop owners in the area and other residents in the Hausa Community hurriedly shut their doors with numerous others fleeing the area for fear of reprisal attack.

Speaking with newsmen on the development, the Sarkin Sabo, Alhaji Ahmed Zungeru who described the incident as unfortunate blamed the Izala sect leaders and their visitor from Jos, Plateau State, Mallam Kalid Usman as the brain behind the imbroglio, saying his preaching had always contradict what the Islamic religion teaches.

The efforts of the anti-riot police officers who mount surveillance in company of the Armourd Personnel Carrier (APC) saved the day as normalcy returns to the community two hours after the ugly incidence lasted.

Aside the injuries sustained mainly by Izala group members, their three identified mosques in the area were vandalized by their rival sect members while four vehicles packed beside their mosque were equally not spared as the irate ‘extremists’ smashed the windscreen of two sport utility vehicles and two others.

Those injured in the fracas were rushed to nearby hospital while others with minor injuries were seen been treated by their colleagues with the first aid materials at their disposal.

The Sarkin claimed that when he saw the rampaging youths heading to Izala’s place he stopped them and appealed for calm but when he sensed that his pleas was falling on deaf ears, he had to personally approached the Divisional Police Office at Iyaganku for them to send their men to quell the matter.

But one of the Izala leaders, Alhaji Abubakar Saliu Tanko passed the blame on the leadership of the Hausa community, describing the Sarkin’s allegation as unfounded.

According to him, the invasion of their ‘lawful gathering’ allegedly by Sarkin himself, his chiefs and the youths was a ploy to phase out their activities in the area.

Tanko said the attack on his group by the Tijaniya/Adriyah was a fallout of last Friday’s a judgment of an Ibadan based Magistrate sitting at Iyaganku, where the judge ruled that none of the two groups had always been at each others’ throat over their preaching to stop using Loudspeaker while the service was on so as to avoid what anything that may cause crisis.

When asked if the two sects complied, Tanko alleged that the Tijaniyah group who were obviously the majority in the area had not complied while they (the Izala) had obeyed the judgment and were conducting their service peacefully when the ‘assailants’ invaded their gathering, caught them unaware and wounded them with dangerous weapons.

Somali MPs Killed In Hotel Suicide Attack (The BBC; Aug 24)

Islamist gunmen have stormed a hotel close to Somalia’s presidential palace and killed at least 32 people, including six MPs.

The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the men were disguised as government soldiers.

They approached the Muna hotel, opened fire on a guard, then one of them blew himself up inside the building.

Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage from the al-Shabab Islamist militia said its “special forces” were behind the raid.

The hotel attack comes on the second day of heavy fighting between al-Shabab and troops of the transitional government, who are backed by the African Union (AU).

Our correspondent says the Muna hotel is popular with government officials, because it is in a government-controlled area and security was seen as tight.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdirahman Ibbi told the BBC Somali Service that the suicide attacker had blown himself up using a hand grenade.

As well as the six MPs, five government officials and 21 civilians were also killed.

Maj Barigye Bahoku, spokesman for the African Union peacekeepers, said an 11-year-old shoe-shine boy and a woman selling tea in front of the hotel were among the dead.

An MP at the Muna hotel told a BBC reporter that there were “dead bodies all over” and the scene was a “massacre”.

He said the gun battle at the hotel had lasted about an hour.

“They rained gunfire on everybody. Nobody stood a chance. I was lucky because they aimed at me but I jumped out of the window and survived,” hotel employee Adan Mohamed told the AFP news agency.

Mr Ibbi called the attack “shocking and brutal”, especially given that it had happened during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Al-Shabab launched a new offensive on Monday soon after its spokesman said the group was declaring a “massive war” on the AU force, describing its 6,000 peacekeepers as “invaders”.

An injured woman is carried to Medina hospital on 24 August 24 2010 as fighting rages in Mogadishu The hotel attack brings the number of people killed to more than 70 in the latest fighting

At least 40 other people have been killed in the fighting and more than 130 wounded, with shells being fired into residential areas, according to health officials.

The government controls only a few key areas of the capital.

The group said it carried out last month’s deadly twin bombings in Uganda’s capital during the football World Cup final.

They were in retaliation for Uganda’s deployment of troops to Somalia with the African Union force, it said.

The AU has responded by saying it will send extra troops to bolster its force in Mogadishu.

Somalia has experienced almost constant conflict since the collapse of its central government in 1991.

Montana Sect Leader Waives Extradition On Rape Charge (The Associated Press; Aug 24)

BILLINGS, Montana: The leader of a Montana religious sect arrested last week in Wyoming has waived extradition to Utah, where he faces charges of raping a 15-year-old girl.

Terrill Dalton appeared in Hot Springs County Circuit Court in Thermopolis, Wyo., on Monday and agreed to return to Utah. Dalton’s bail remained at $250,000.

Dalton surrendered to authorities last Thursday near Thermopolis, a day after federal agents arrested another church leader, Geody Harman, in Fromberg. Both men are accused of raping the same 15-year-old girl in Utah in 2005 or 2006.

The Church of the Firstborn and the General Assembly of Heaven moved to Fromberg from Idaho in September after claiming persecution. Church members fled to Idaho after federal agents raided their headquarters in Magna, Utah, in May 2009.

Catholic Priest Directed Deadly Ulster Attack (The Australian; Aug 25)

A Catholic priest directed a devastating IRA car-bomb attack in the Northern Ireland village of Claudy in 1972.

It was one of the worst atrocities of the bloodiest year of the Troubles — and his role was covered up by British police, government ministers and the Catholic hierarchy, an official investigation revealed last night.

Nine people were killed, three of them children, and more than 30 were injured in the attack. No one was ever charged with the killings, and the IRA denied responsibility at the time.

But a long-awaited report by the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland last night confirmed suspicions Father James Chesney, from the nearby village of Bellaghy, was directly involved in the IRA operation.

Father Chesney was transferred to a parish in County Donegal in the Irish republic, outside the Northern Ireland jurisdiction, following secret talks between the then British secretary of state, William Whitelaw, and the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal William Conway.

Mr Whitelaw and Cardinal Conway discussed the scandal after being approached by a senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officer because the police were reportedly reluctant to arrest the priest for fear of inflaming the security situation.

The Claudy attack happened on the same day British troops stormed republican areas in the city of Londonderry.

That occurred just six months after the Bloody Sunday killings of 13 civilians by British troops in Londonderry when Martin McGuinness, now the Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive, was the Irish Republican Army’s second-in-command in the city.

An RUC officer’s request to arrest the priest was refused by an assistant chief constable of the Special Branch who said “matters are in hand”. That officer had written to the British government about what action could be taken to “render harmless a dangerous priest” and asked if the case could be raised with the Catholic hierarchy.

At the Claudy bomb inquest, a coroner described the outrage as “sheer, unadulterated, cold, calculated, fiendish murder”.

Later poet James Simmons described the moment of the attack in his work Claudy.

“An explosion too loud for your eardrums to bear, and young children squealing like pigs in the square, and all faces chalk-white and streaked with bright red, and the glass and the dust and the terrible dead.”

Five Scandals You May Have Missed

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:30:01 +0000

God’s Wheeler Dealer And The Mystery Millions (John Cooney/The Irish Independent; July 3)

It’s been some week for Pope Benedict. It began with his indignant protests against the seizure of secret church files on paedophile priests by Belgian police, then the US Supreme Court ruled that the Vatican no longer had diplomatic immunity and would have to defend a lawsuit against a dead Irish paedophile priest.

And now the 83-year-old German pontiff finds the church mired in a potentially massive financial scandal, as Italian lawyers claim widespread corruption within the heart of Rome.

Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the former head of the centuries-old, property-rich Congregation for Evangelisation (Propaganda Fide), has come under serious fire.

Propaganda Fide owns and manages hundreds of properties in central Rome, worth an estimated €9bn [about $12 billion US] and fetching €56m [about $73 million US] in annual rent into the Vatican coffers. So powerful is the head of Propaganda Fide — a post briefly held by the Irishman Dermot Ryan, the former Archbishop of Dublin before his sudden death in 1984 — that he is known in the Vatican corridors of power as the Red Pope, or Il Papa Rosso.

A successor of Ryan, Cardinal Sepe is under investigation for corruption after allegedly receiving kickbacks during the five years that he headed Propaganda Fide from 2001 to 2006.

Charged by magistrates in the central Italian town of Perugia, he is suspected of collusion with Pietro Lunardi, Italy’s former Minister for Infrastructure and Transportation. In 2004, Sepe’s autonomous office reportedly sold Lunardi, a central Rome palazzo, way below the market price and a year later Propaganda Fide allegedly received €2.5m [about $3.25 million US] in public subsidies for repairs on its Piazza di Spagna headquarters that were never done.

Now the Archbishop of Naples, the 67-year-old Cardinal Sepe, revered by Neapolitans as “O’guapo”, the local slang for “The Boss”, has mounted a vigorous defence.

He insists that the two events were unrelated, and he claims that the money Propaganda earned from the sale of the lavish palazzo was sent to another Vatican office, the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. (APSA).

Irrespective of the outcome, this high-profile case highlights the lack of transparency in the Vatican’s hidden wealth. Propaganda runs its multibillion-euro portfolio independently of APSA, the body that administers the Holy See’s assets, on which Ireland’s Peter Sutherland sits.

The Sepe case has shown that the Vatican’s two top money and property bureaux operate independently without any liaison….

For too long Italian property speculators have been too close to Princes of the church, who live in Renaissance-style grandeur in splendid palazzos that make the residences owned in the Celtic Tiger era by moguls such as Sean Fitzpatrick and Bernard McNamara look like downtown shanty hovels.

In 2006, a year after he was elected pontiff, Benedict surprised Vatican watchers by exiling Sepe to Naples. Usually such appointments are for life. It was a clear indication that the Pope was unhappy with his performance. Sepe’s successor, the holy Indian Cardinal Ivan Diaz, now wants out on health grounds.

Financial corruption in the Vatican could prove as damaging for papal prestige as the abuse crisis. The evidence is mounting that during Pope John Paul II’s reign, the church protected the serial paedophile, the late Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr Marcial Maciel. Maciel was a close friend of Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid.

The paedophile cover-ups by bishops in Ireland, Germany and Austria are all pointing to inaction in the Vatican. These files are stacked up on the pontiff’s desk.

Pope Benedict’s dilemma is that any temptation to blame his Polish predecessor, who he wants to fast-track to sainthood, will implicate himself to these abuse scandals. His chosen alternative is to inaugurate a new epoch of re-evangelisation in a crusade against secularisation.

It is a recipe for nurturing hard-line sectarian zealots within a shrinking flock. It smacks of Nero fiddling while Rome burns and the money trail vanishes.

Former Georgetown Quarterback Indicted In Church Investigation (The Washington Examiner; July 20)

A former all-conference quarterback for Georgetown University is in legal trouble in connection with a criminal probe of a controversial Waldorf-based church that ministers to people with drug and alcohol addictions.

J.J. Mont, who still owns numerous passing and scoring records for the Division 1-AA Hoyas, has been indicted on obstruction charges after authorities accused him of providing fraudulent financial documents to a federal grand jury.

Mont, 31, of Indian Head, is the treasurer for a church whose pastor is under a grand jury investigation for numerous possible violations, including for the breaking of federal bankruptcy laws.

Federal authorities are investigating the pastor of the church, and are trying to determine who has ownership over the ministry’s assets and several luxury vehicles including a 2004 Bentley Arnage, a 2004 Maybach 57 S and at least four Mercedez-Benzs, according to the indictment filed in federal court in Greenbelt.

The church was not identified by name in the charging document, but according to bankruptcy court records Mont is the treasurer of the Seed Faith International Church. The church filed for bankruptcy in March 2009.

A judge has allowed Mont to continue to attend services there but he is ordered to avoid contact with its pastor, Robert Freeman, and other top church leaders. Mont was released to his mother’s custody in Alexandria. He could not be reached Monday.

Freeman, who calls himself “Dr. Shine,” has claimed to treat addicts through the rites of exorcism, and has admitted to striking people who tried to fight back. According to a 2002 newspaper story in the Gazette, Freeman had $900,000 in court judgments against him….

Ohio Priest, Founder Of Rehab Center, Pleads Guilty In Tax Case (Thomas J. Sheeran/The Associated Press; July 23)

CLEVELAND: A Roman Catholic priest who founded an alcohol and drug rehab center in Ohio has pleaded guilty to dividing $1 million into 139 deposits to avoid a requirement that deposits over $10,000 be reported to the federal government.

The 68-year-old Rev. Samuel Ciccolini of Akron also pleaded guilty Friday in Cleveland federal court to avoiding $129,432 in taxes in 2003 by underreporting his income by $300,000.

He says the money was his and didn’t involve embezzled funds from the church or the Interval Brotherhood Home which he founded in Akron.

Ciccolini says he hoarded the money over a 33-year period and panicked in 2003 over a new U.S. currency design. He didn’t elaborate about his concerns.

Judge James Gwin set sentencing for Oct. 8.

Church Denounces Gay Priests After Magazine Revelations (The BBC; July 23)

An Italian Catholic diocese has denounced homosexual priests for their “double life” and said they should not be in the priesthood.

The Diocese of Rome was responding to a magazine article on three homosexual priests that gave details of alleged sexual encounters and trips to clubs.

The diocese said “the honour of all the others” was sullied by their behaviour.

The Church holds that all sexual activity outside marriage is sinful and regards homosexual acts as unnatural.

The article in the conservative magazine Panorama, entitled Gay Priests’ Nights on the Town, carried pictures and interviews with the men.

The research was carried out over a month using hidden cameras.

It recorded sexual encounters, including one in a church building.

The diocese said of the priests: “We don’t wish any ill-will against them, but we cannot accept that because of their behaviour the honour of all the others is sullied.”

It said it was “saddened and troubled” by the article and vowed to pursue “with rigour any behaviour that is unworthy of the priestly life”.

Pope Benedict XVI instructed in 2005 that actively gay priests should be barred from seminaries.

The Pope has said gay marriage is an “insidious and dangerous threat to the common good”.

Cult Leader Jailed For Raping Followers (Ian Proctor/The Harrow Observer; July 28)

BRONDESBURY, United Kingdom: A cult leader has been jailed for 10 years for raping and sexually assaulting two female followers.

Michael Lyons, 52, who was also known as Mohan Singh, had faced a string of sex offence charges that were said to have taken place between 1998 and 2008 against seven alleged victims – one an American and one a New Zealander – while he operated as a self-confessed ’spiritual group leader’.

Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Nick Giles said: “Lyons purported to be a naturopath, skilled in osteopathy, acupuncture and nutrition. His followers were mainly women, who supported his lavish lifestyle.

“He was introduced to potential new members through his followers. The new members were also women, with interests in spiritualism and well being.

“We heard in evidence that Lyons used a program of sleep deprivation and psychological harassment as well as group social pressure to coerce them to join. He sexually assaulted victims during this process.

“This coercive persuasion forced people to change their beliefs, ideas, attitudes and behaviours, using psychological pressure, undue influence, threats, anxiety and intimidation.

“Evidence of bad character was used to show his cult activities and sexual misconduct.”

One victim was attacked after travelling to a basement flat in Finchley Road, north-west London, for a so-called group healing session.

She was handed a carrot and orange juice drink and an Oxo cube-like liquorice remedy, which turned out to be a powerful laxative, before being invited into a side room to receive treatment for back trouble.

The woman said Lyons had a well-rehearsed patter that preceded the sex attack.

“It’s such a clever routine. I am certain others have gone through it,” she said.

“Just before he assaulted me, the thought went through my head: ‘He has done this before’.

“I just thought he was a chippy little bloke, I thought I knew the sort, the kind of guy he is. ”

“It is like someone jumped out on me in the dark, but in a psychological sense.

“It’s a sense of false safety. I didn’t realise that these women were effectively Stepford Wives. It’s all part of the grooming.”

Lyons, of Brondesbury Park, Brondesbury, had denied all the charges against him at Wood Green Crown Court in north-east London but on Monday (July 26) he was found guilty by the jury of the June 2002 rape of a 34-year-old woman at an address in Belsize Park in central London, for which he received seven years’ imprisonment, and of the assault by penetration of a 43-year-old woman in January 2005, for which he was given a consecutive three-year jail term.

He was cleared of three further counts of rape and one of sexual assault against four separate women and a further count of rape and a further count of sexual assault are to lie on file.

The Continuing Witch Hunts

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:49:44 +0000

200 Women Killed Every Year In India After Being Branded “Witches” (The Hindustan Times/The Press Trust Of India; July 25)

Nearly 200 to 150 women are killed every year in India after being tagged as ‘witches’, a Dehra Dun based NGO has said citing National Crime Bureau statistics.

Jharkhand tops the list with 50-60 witchcraft-related murders every year followed by Andhra Pradesh where the number is around 30, Haryana 25-30 and Orissa 24-28, Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK) Chairman Avdhash Kaushal claimed.

Jharkhand is not the only state where women are facing barbaric attacks in the name of witchcraft, such incidents are common in Orissa, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, Kaushal said.

In past 15 years, more than 2,500 women were killed after being accused of practicing witchcraft, according to a study conducted by RLEK.

Five women were stripped and paraded naked last year in Patharghatia village in Deodhar district of Jharkhand.

In yet another incident, a 40-year old woman was lynched allegedly by her women neighbours at Sikariatand village in Simdega district of the same state, Kushal claimed.

“It is very sad that women are still being killed rampantly after being declared witches. Majority of these incidents are not reported in the media,” Kaushal, a recipient of Padam Shri, said.

He said in order to overcome the menace a national legislation was needed.

“We will soon file a writ petition in the court of law to seek a remedy in the form of a new legislation from Parliament on the issue,” he said.

To learn more about the never-ending witch hunts that continue to plague our world, see the entries I posted on March 29, 2009 and May 21, 2009.

Silly Religious Ritual Claims Yet Another Victim

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:30:02 +0000

Baby Drowned During Baptism (The Sun; July 26)

A priest has been accused of drowning a baby as he baptised the tiny tot.

The holy man is being quizzed after the baby’s parents claimed he accidentally drowned their son at the ceremony.

Witnesses claim Father Valentin did not cover the six-week-old tot’s mouth before immersing him in the font.

The priest denies being to blame for baby’s death after the baptism in the Rascani district in north-western Moldova, Eastern Europe.

The baby’s dad Dumitru Gaidau, 36, said: “We all saw it, the priest didn’t put his hand over the baby’s mouth to stop water going in as he should have done and as they do at every other baptism. We couldn’t believe it that he just put his hand over his belly and over the head and submerged him three times in the water.”

The baby’s godmother Aliona Vacarciuc, 32, said: “The baby was crying as he went into the water. We couldn’t believe it but we thought the priest must know what he’s doing, but he didn’t. When we got him back there was nothing that could be done anymore.”

She said that she and the other godparents had challenged the priest and asked him: “What have you done.”

She added: “He just told us that he knew better than we did what should have happened and that it was not his first baptism — he was experienced and knew what to do.”

Doctor Sergiu Raileanu who examined the tiny tot, however, told Romania’s Publica TV that his examination confirmed that the baby had drowned.

Local police said they have launched a manslaughter investigation. If found guilty, the priest faces up to three years in jail.

How many more lives will be lost to this primitive religious ritual before people wise up and abandon it?

(To learn about some of the other victims this ritual has claimed, see the entry I posted on July 23 as well as the related links.)

More Good News You Might Have Missed

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:23:00 +0000

Irish Senator Calls For A Secular Constitution (The National Secular Society; July 23)

An Irish Senator has called for the country to adopt a secular constitution. Labour Party Senator Ivana Bacik told the AGM [Annual General Meeting?] of Atheist Ireland last weekend that there was now an appetite for constitutional reform in Ireland now that it is no longer dominated by Catholicism.

The fundamental rights elements of the Constitution, regarding the role of mothers in the home, rights of the father, protection of children and church involvement in education, should no longer be inspired by religious doctrine, she added.

Ms Bacik, herself an atheist, said there was a good deal of support among members of the Oireachtas (parliament) to separate the church from the state and that, even though many might not publicly admit it, there were a number of atheists among the parliamentary ranks. She said there was still considerable anger about blasphemy legislation introduced by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern last January and that she felt many in Mr Ahern’s Fianna Fáil party were troubled by the measures.

Atheist Ireland has this year decided to campaign for the removal of religious oaths from the courts. It said witnesses could now ask to take a secular oath but that this could cause a jury to take a prejudiced view of them.

The group will also campaign for the removal of religious symbols from schools and hospitals, and for an education system in which children of non-religious people are not indoctrinated in religious teachings in school. It will also oppose the Oireachtas starting each day with a prayer asking God to guide the work of parliamentarians.

Have YOU heard of any good news lately? Please pass it along when you can!

Five Stories Worthy Of The Devil…

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:00:10 +0000

… but all about gOd’s holy followers instead:

Pakistan’s Karachi Wracked By Sectarian Violence (Ashraf Khan/The Associated Press; June 27)

KARACHI: Asif Raza and his brother were killed days apart and in the same manner: gunned down on the streets of Pakistan’s largest city. Their relatives insist the pair was targeted by Sunni extremists only because they were Shiites.

Around the same time, Rizwan Qadri, a Sunni, was killed when he stopped by a betel leaf shop on his way home. His killers are presumed to be either Shiite extremists or members of a powerful political party that has been linked to many deaths in the city.

Close to half of the 600 murders reported so far this year in the economic hub of Karachi have been “target killings,” slayings carried out by religious groups and gangs affiliated with political parties. That’s roughly double the number that occurred in all of 2009.

The surge is symptomatic of the lawlessness that has long plagued this teeming southern port city of 18 million, where police are ineffectual, religious tensions run high and politicians exploit ethnic divides.

But the uptick is violence is particularly worrying these days as it is a reflection of the problems that plague Pakistan in general, where a weak government is often no match for the volatile mix of ethnicities and religious sects that compete for power and loyalty….

The city’s chaos provides cover for the growing number of Taliban and al-Qaida militants looking for a hide-out beyond the northwest tribal regions under siege by army operations and U.S. missile strikes. The Taliban’s No. 2 leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in Karachi in February, and other members of the militant group’s top leadership council are believed to spend time in the city.

It is also threatening to undercut confidence in the U.S.-allied government bogged down in a war against those Islamist extremists….

The religious violence that courses through the city is so pervasive that many of its thousands of mosques are locked outside of prayer times. Battles have not only broken out between the country’s main Sunni sect and minority Shiites. Fighting among different schools of Sunni Islam is also common.

Over two dozen Shiite Muslims have been killed this year, according to data collected by the Citizen Police Liaison Committee, a public-private sector crime watchdog and monitoring organization. A dozen Sunnis, most members of the extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba group, were also gunned down….

Monk Arrested In Slaying Of Priest, Nun In China (The Associated Press; July 9)

BEIJING: A Catholic monk has confessed to stabbing to death a priest and a nun whose bodies were found at the hospice in northern China where they worked, state media said Friday.

Priest Zhang Shulai and nun Wei Yanhui were both members of China’s unauthorized church, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. A report by AsiaNews, a missionary news agency close to the Vatican, said their bodies were found in a pool of blood after they failed to show up for morning Mass on Tuesday.

Monk Zhang Wenping, 43, was arrested Thursday in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia region, the Xinhua report said, citing a police spokesman in Wuhai city where the hospice is located.

Zhang Wenping told police that he had personal grudges against the priest and nun, Xinhua reported. It did not give details.

Zhang Wenping, like the victims, was also a member of the unauthorized church, said Zhang Pengyao, a local priest in the official church, who confirmed the arrest….

Hindus Attacked And Driven From Their Homes By Pakistan’s Majority Muslims (The Press Trust of India; July 12)

ISLAMABAD: Several members of the minority Hindu community were attacked and forced out of their homes in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province after a boy drank water from a facility outside a mosque.

About 60 Hindu men, women and children were recently forced to abandon their homes at Memon Goth in Karachi, the capital of Sindh, after influential tribesmen of the area objected to the boy drinking water from a cooler.

“All hell broke loose when my son, Dinesh, who looks after chickens in a farm, drank water from a cooler outside a mosque. Upon seeing him do that, the people of the area started beating him up,” a Hindu man named Meerumal told The News daily.

“Later, around 150 tribesmen attacked us, injuring seven of our people — Samo, Mohan, Hero, Chanu, Sadu, Heera, and Guddi — who were taken to the Jinnah Hospital,” he said.

The Hindus who were forced out of their homes have taken refuge in a cattle pen.

One of the injured, Heera, said about 400 Hindu families are being threatened to vacate the area.

“Our people are even scared of going out of their houses. We are also putting up with living in the filthy (cattle) pen because we cannot go home for fear of being killed,” said Heera, who too is living in a cattle shed….

82 Police Injured In Belfast’s Two Nights Of Riots (Shwan Pogatchnik/The Associated Press; July 13)

BELFAST: Northern Ireland leaders condemned Irish nationalist rioters Tuesday who wounded 82 police officers during two nights of street clashes sparked by the province’s annual parades by the British Protestant majority.

While most of the injured officers suffered only cuts and bruises, others suffered burns and broken hands. Two remained hospitalized: a policeman wounded in the chest and arms by a shotgun blast, and a policewoman who had a paving stone dropped on her head from a shop’s rooftop.

The violence in working-class Catholic parts of Belfast and other towns came both before and after tens of thousands of Protestants of the Orange Order brotherhood marched at 18 locations across Northern Ireland in an annual show of communal strength. It was the worst rioting in Belfast since the same event exactly one year ago.

Politicians and police commanders said the rioters, influenced by Irish Republican Army dissidents opposed to compromise, were chiefly motivated to attack the police themselves. IRA dissidents have focused in recent months on trying to lure police into ambushes, until now with little success.

The Northern Ireland police commander, Chief Constable Matt Baggott, released video of Monday’s rioting in two parts of Belfast captured by surveillance helicopters. The footage showed hundreds of masked teens and young men swarming and pummeling police armored vehicles and swinging clubs at ranks of shield-wielding police while the officers stood their ground or retreated slowly….

He said the money being spent on police overtime, medical care, destroyed equipment and property was a multimillion euro waste that Northern Ireland couldn’t afford.

“The cost of policing last night … is the equivalent of a new ward in a hospital, the equivalent of a new primary school,” he told reporters at his Belfast headquarters.

Baggott’s Belfast deputy, Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, criticized the leaders of Northern Ireland’s 3-year-old government for failing to resolve parade-related confrontations.

Finlay said the Protestant first minister, Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson, and his Catholic deputy, former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, both have failed to show any public leadership during or after the riots.

Finlay questioned whether “they have a plan to meet this type of issue next time it comes round, rather than waiting until it inevitably comes around next year.”…

Several Belfast roads remained closed Tuesday as workers cleared away the remains of the riots: blackened shells of cars that were stolen and torched; roadways littered with glass shards and scorched by impacts from Molotov cocktails; errant objects – wood planks, a beer keg, iron scaffolding, a child’s bicycle – that had been thrown at police; garbage cans lined up on a bridge and set on fire….

Northern Ireland’s main rail line remained partly closed after Irish nationalist rioters in Lurgan, southwest of Belfast, tried to set fire to a train with 55 passengers on board. Nobody was hurt because the engineer drove the train away quickly.

In Northern Ireland’s second-largest city of Londonderry, a lone gunman using a nearby pub for cover fired at least five shots from a handgun at police Tuesday as they tried to extinguish a fire that had engulfed a police armored vehicle. Nobody was hurt, and police said the masked gunman escaped.

Monday’s violence began in Ardoyne, a traditional IRA power base in north Belfast, where about 100 demonstrators tried to block one parade route while masked men and youths on side streets bombarded police with bricks, bottles, stones, Molotov cocktails and at least one homemade grenade.

Police said they fired about 70 plastic bullets during four hours of street clashes in Ardoyne.

Since 1998, a British-appointed Parades Commission has imposed restrictions on Orange marching routes to prevent the Protestants – accompanied by “kick the pope” bands of tattooed men playing fife and drum – from passing most Catholic districts.

Still, authorities have failed to negotiate alternative routes for some parades, including the one past Ardoyne’s row of shops on Crumlin Road. The thoroughfare connects one Orange lodge to central Belfast. The disputed Ardoyne parade involves a single Orange lodge of about 30 men and an accompanying band of about 50 men and boys.

Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government plans to scrap the Parades Commission in favor of locally controlled mediation arrangements. Critics say those plans could backfire and reopen wider disputes over next July’s Orange parades.

Christian-Muslim Clashes In Nigeria Leave 8 Dead (AFP; July 14)

KANO: Christians and Muslims have clashed in eastern Nigeria, leaving eight people dead and 40 seriously wounded, with six mosques and one church also torched, police said on Wednesday.

In the latest sectarian violence to rock the country, fighting broke out Tuesday between Muslim and Christian youths in Wukari, a town in Taraba state, over the building of a mosque on the premises of a local police headquarters.

A Christian mob opposed to the construction of the mosque razed it, Taraba state police commissioner Aliyu Musa told AFP by phone from the state capital Jalingo.

Muslims responded by attacking a nearby church, leading to the eruption of violence between the two sides, Musa said.

“From reports at our disposal, eight people have been killed and 40 others seriously injured in the violence while six mosques and one church were burnt,” Musa said.

Police sent in reinforcements and the situation was calm in remote Taraba, one of Nigeria’s 36 states, on Wednesday, he said.

Taraba, which neighbours Plateau, the central Nigerian state whose capital Jos is a sectarian flashpoint, is predominantly Christian.

Sectarian clashes occur frequently in Nigeria, particularly in the country’s north, with hundreds of people killed in violence this year alone.

The new clashes come weeks ahead of the one-year anniversary of an uprising by an Islamist sect in the northern city of Maiduguri.

Nigerian police and troops crushed the uprising by the Boko Haram sect — which has also been called the Nigerian Taliban — after four days of street battles that left more than 800 dead, mostly sect members….

Does God Want You On The Pill?

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:04:01 +0000

Of course not.

God (i.e., gOd) doesn’t exist.

But if you happen to be one of those people who believes he *does* exist…

… and if you also happen to be one of those people who suspect AIDS is his punishment for homosexual behavior and cancer is his way of punishing Christopher Hitchens for being an uppity atheist…

… what do you make of this?

One of the world’s largest studies of the Pill – 46,000 women followed for nearly 40 years – was released this March. It found that woman who take the Pill are less likely to die prematurely from any cause, including cancer and heart disease…. (Nancy Gibbs, “Love, Sex, Freedom and the Paradox of the Pill”; Time cover story, May 3, 2010)

If your God (i.e., gOd) doesn’t want women on the Pill, why is he rewarding those women who take it with better health?

Two more Fun Facts from the same article:

—– The Pill’s main inventor was a conservative Catholic who was looking for a treatment for infertility and instead found a guarantee of it.

—– Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger was born into a devout Catholic family. Her father actually made his living carving angels and saints out of marble. Her mother died at the age of 50 after 18 pregnancies….

If Jesus exists, it seems that he rather enjoys playing cruel practical jokes on his followers.

(Perhaps he takes after his father – you know, the guy who allegedly gave his “chosen people” a “holy land” that turns out to be one of the few places in the Mideast that isn’t sitting atop a sea of oil.)

Elizabeth Tevenan: Murderous Theist Parent #33

Quest For Eternal Life Proves Deadly Yet Again

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:58:38 +0000

Traditional Healer And Follower Feared Drowned (News24.com; April 18)

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa: Two people were swept out to sea while conducting a baptism ritual on a Wilderness beach, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Sunday.

The incident unfolded 100m from where a 35-year-old fisherman was swept off the rocks and into the sea a few hours earlier.

“At 08:54 on Saturday, NSRI Wilderness, the SA Police Services and the Metro Ambulance and Rescue Services were activated following a reported drowning in progress 3km West of Ballots Bay,” NSRI Wilderness station commander, Hennie Niehaus said in a statement.

Despite an extensive search, the fisherman could not be found.

They were called back at 17:30 after reports that a 56-year-old woman sangoma [a traditional healer] and a man were both swept out to sea while conducting a ritual, Niehaus said. “An extensive search has revealed no sign of the pair. Both are missing and are presumed to have drowned.”

The NSRI and a police dive unit were continuing their search for the three.

Ghanaian Christians Arrested After Baptism Drowning (Erik Tryggestad/The Christian Chronicle; July 22)

Christians in Africa and the U.S. seek prayers for three members of a Church of Christ in Ghana who were arrested in connection with a July 4 drowning following a baptism there.

The following information comes from Gary Heath, deacon of missions for the Mesa, Ariz., Church of Christ, and Joel Coppinger, of World Bible School of Tulare County in Visalia, Calif. Both men make regular trips to the region for Gospel campaigns.

The drowning happened July 4, said Christopher Arthur, minister for a Church of Christ in Swedru, a city west of the capital, Accra.

Derick Ayensu, a church member in Swedru, was visiting a congregation in the nearby village of Mensakrom. After the worship service, two men asked to be baptized.

Church members took them to the edge of a river. High rainfall in late June caused flooding in Swedru and knocked out bridges in the city. It also made the rivers that flow through the region dangerous.

Ayensu baptized the two men and left the river without incident. Then Ayensu returned to the river to rinse off his feet. He slipped and was washed downstream. His body was found six days later.

“Police came and arrested the two new converts with the brother in charge of the village church,” Arthur said, “and the police wanted to charge them with negligence of duty leading to death.” Other charges include operating an unlicensed church, Heath said.

Arthur also was arrested and held in jail overnight before he was released.

The three church members in prison are scheduled to be in court tomorrow (July 23). Ghanaian church members will appeal to the judges to have the charges dismissed.

Heath and Coppinger are collecting funds to help with the church members’ legal defense….

To learn more about the dangerous nature of holy water rituals, see the entries I posted on March 21 and Jan 9.

To learn about the continuing dangerous nature of religious rituals in India, keep reading….

3 Drown In River During Hindu Festival (The Associated Press; April 14)

HARIDWAR, India: At least three people drowned as hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims took dips in the waters of the Ganges River on Wednesday during a festival in northern India, an official said.

The three fell from a bridge that crosses the river as authorities tried to control the surge of devotees following the procession of a Hindu religious sect leader, said Amit Chandola, a spokesman for the government of Uttrakhand state. The victims’ bodies were later recovered from the river.

Nearly 8 million people converged on the banks of the river Wednesday for one of the most auspicious bathing days of the festival that ends April 28, said Chandola. Devout Hindus believe bathing in the Ganges will cleanse them of their sins and free them from the cycle of life and rebirth….

Can Theists Be Trusted With Children?

Atheist Under Ur Bed — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:44 +0000

I suppose many theists can be.

Given the many stories I’ve come across over the years detailing the horrendous suffering that children have experienced at the hands of those who believe in gOd and other supernatural forces, however, I’d personally have to think long and hard before entrusting my own children to the care of any of them.

Here are a few of the most recent stories I’ve come across that have left me deeply troubled and sadly shaking my head:

Amish Man Accused Of Sex Crimes With Children (Jim Salter/The Associated Press; June 8)

ST. LOUIS: A 26-year-old Amish man has been charged with sexually assaulting five underage girls in Missouri and Wisconsin, including a cousin of his, authorities said Tuesday.

Chester Mast, of Curryville, Mo., was arrested in late May after authorities were contacted by members of Pike County, Mo., Amish community, an “Old Order Amish” community that shuns such amenities as electricity, phones and cars.

Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte said Tuesday that Mast sexually assaulted four girls in Missouri and one in Wisconsin who ranged in age from 5 to 15 years old. Two of the Missouri girls were Amish and two weren’t, and the Wisconsin victim was his cousin, who is Amish, authorities said.

“It is unfortunate that nowhere in society is anybody immune from being a victim,” Korte said Tuesday. “No matter where you go there are people who may violate other people’s liberties and freedoms and peace of mind.”

Korte and Scott Blader, the district attorney for Waushara County, Wis., said they worried that there may be other victims.

“It looks as though there are other matters out there and we’re looking at them actively,” Blader said.

Mast is charged in Missouri with two counts of statutory rape, two counts of statutory sodomy and one count of sexual misconduct involving a child. Korte said he is not related to any of those girls. Mast has not entered a plea, and was scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

In Wisconsin, Mast is charged with sexual assault and incest. Blader said the victim there is Mast’s cousin. He declined to give her exact age at the time of the alleged assault, only saying that she was from 13 to 16 years old.

Mast is jailed on $100,000 bond in Pike County, but if he posts bail, he’ll be extradited to Wisconsin and held without bond, Blader said….

Taleban Hang 7-Year-Old Boy To Punish Family (Jerome Starkey/The Times; June 11)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: A seven-year-old boy was murdered by the Taleban in an apparent act of retribution this week. Afghan officials said that the child was accused of spying for US and Nato forces and hanged from a tree in southern Afghanistan.

Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the provincial governor of Helmand, said that the killing happened days after the boy’s grandfather, Abdul Woodod Alokozai, spoke out against militants in their home village.

Mr Ahmadi said: “His grandfather is a tribal elder in the village and the village is under the control of the Taleban. His grandfather said some good things about the Government and he formed a small group of people to stand against the Taleban. That’s why the Taleban killed his grandson in revenge.”

The attack happened in Heratiyan, in Sangin, near where insurgents shot down an American Pave Hawk helicopter on Wednesday, killing all four crew. The helicopter was swooping over the town to suppress attacks on a grounded air ambulance, which was picking up British casualties.

Shamsuddin Khan Faryie, an elder in Heratiyan, said that the boy, identified as the son of Abul Qudooz, was seized as he played in his garden. He was found hanged from a nearby tree….

Malawi: Christian Sect In Measles Vaccine Standoff (The Malta Independent; June 18)

BLANTYRE, Malawi: More than 100 members of a Christian religious sect have barricaded themselves in an abandoned building in southern Malawi over their refusal to give their children the measles vaccine, a regional health official said.

Members of the Seventh Day Apostolic Church, who remained barricaded on Wednesday, say their doctrine forbids them from taking medication when they fall sick, as they believe prayer will bring divine healing.

The week-long standoff in the district of Mulanje follows an outbreak of the highly contagious disease which has killed 48 people in the southern African country this year. Another 9,600 cases have been registered, the government said.

Malawi’s government says at least six million children in Malawi under the age of 15 require vaccination against measles. But when it came to vaccinating the children of members of the Apostolic Church, the government hit a brick wall.

Church leaders say they believe only God – not medicine – can cure people.

“Our church doctrine forbids us from taking any medication because medicines are manufactured by man,” Apostle Hosea Biniwasi, a senior elder of the church, told The Associated Press. “It is God’s will for man to get sick from time to time. By taking medicines are you trying to challenge God?”

Africa: Child Witchcraft Or Autism Symptoms? (Konye Obaji Ori/Afrik-News; July 9)

Across Sub-Sahara Africa, children from underprivileged backgrounds who sometimes exhibit symptoms of Autism, are often labeled as witches or wizards, and victimized – poisoned, drowned, hacked to death with machetes or buried alive in an attempt to deliver their soul from the snare of the ‘devil’.

Autism, according to the U.S. autism science and advocacy organization Autism Speaks, is a “complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others”. But in countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda, many churches organize fellowships and revival meetings to cast out the demons of witchcraft in children who exhibit such characteristics.

While witch hunting is considered a thing of the past in the entire western world, the practice remains a reality in Africa. A lack of scientific analysis or understanding of certain anomalies in children has perpetuated the belief in such superstitions as child-witchcraft.

The children, often accused of witchcraft or wizardry and victimized, exhibit uncommon physical, mental, social and behavioral characteristics which may include acting up with intense tantrums, showing aggression to others or themselves, stubborn, preferring solitary or ritualistic play, do not startle at loud noises, and often refer to themselves in third person. In some cases even children who exhibit signs of physical ailments like allergies, asthma, epilepsy, digestive disorders, persistent viral infections, feeding disorders, sensory integration dysfunction, sleeping disorders, etc, tend to find themselves doubly penalized by a society they helplessly depend upon for their existence.

But these characteristics, medically considered as symptoms of autism, are traditionally seen as unusual by some rural communities across Africa. Usually, illiterate parents, guardians and sometimes neighbors readily accept witchcraft as an explanation for extraordinary events. An act that shapes the future of autistic and underprivileged African children. And responsibility, more often than not, may be leveled at the whimsical pronouncements of powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have usually combined to produce an entrenched belief in witchcraft.

The belief in witchcraft is predominant amongst the underprivileged rural class, and it holds that child-witches bring destruction, waste, hardship, disease and death to their families. Other identified symptoms that worsen the plight of the so-called child-witches are crying and screaming in the night, hallucinations which sometimes arise from a high fever or other illness involving a fever, and worsening health – symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.

In November 28, 2008, the telegraph.co.uk reported the story of Mary, a five-year-old girl who was driven into the streets by her father, after the local priest denounced her as a witch and blamed her “evil powers” for causing her mother’s death.

Ostracized, vulnerable and frightened, Mary wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, struggling to stay alive. According to the report, Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been accused of being withdrawn, hardly responding to eye contact or smiles, treating others as if they were objects, preferring to spend time alone, rather than with others, and showing a lack of empathy.

Although attitudes are changing across Africa, many still believe that children like Mary who are often branded child-witches organize nocturnal meetings in the seas, oceans and forests where they feast on human blood, flesh or fetuses, and inflict harm or undermine the progress of people especially their family members.

Malaysian Man Sentenced To Gallows For Exorcism Killing (MonstersAndCritics.com; June 29)

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian man was sentenced to hang after he caused the death of a 3-year-old girl during an exorcism ritual gone wrong, news reports said Tuesday.

Nur Farah Adila Ridzuan was strangled, had her head slammed against the wall and was thrown around violently by her mother’s lover, 49-year-old Davender Singh, the New Straits Times daily said.

Singh had claimed that Nur Farah had been placed under a spell by her father, who was divorced from her mother. He took it upon himself to exorcise the spirit.

The girl suffered multiple internal injuries including a torn liver, broken ribs and a bleeding pancreas. She died in June 2005, the report said.

The victim’s mother testified that Singh forbade her to be near the toddler during his exorcism, to keep the supposed spirit from passing into her.

Girl Beaten And Burnt In Exorcism Ritual (New Straits Times; July 21)

JOHOR BARU, Malaysia: A 10-year-old girl who was bound, beaten and burnt for a month as part of an exorcism ritual escaped on Monday after picking the lock on the chain around her ankle.

The girl, who had burn marks on both hands, bruises on her face believed to be from being punched, swollen wrists and also fractured ribs, was rushed to the hospital by a neighbour.

Police were later called in and a relative was arrested 24 hours later when he surrendered at the Permas Jaya police station.

Johor police chief Datuk Mokhtar Shariff confirmed that a roti canai seller was arrested and remanded for four days to facilitate investigations.

Police learnt that the girl was left in the care of a relative in Taman Permas Jaya after her father passed away.

The relative started performing the exorcism rituals on her shortly after a medium told him that she was an unlucky omen for the family.

Initially, she was deprived of food, given only rice laced with turmeric powder and chilli.

Then, she was chained and beaten up. This allegedly went on for a month until Monday morning when she managed to pick the lock and freed herself.

She is currently at Sultanah Aminah Hospital for a full medical check-up.

Mokhtar said that police were still awaiting the full medical report. He also said that the girl was in stable condition.

The girl, when met at the hospital later, said she now wanted to stay in a welfare home, rather than returning to a life of hell at her relative’s home.

The girl alleged that the relative, and his wife, would tell her that the punishment was for her own good.

Permas Jaya state assemblyman M. M. Samy visited her at the hospital yesterday where the girl pleaded with him not to send her back to the relative’s house.