Witchcraft in Malawi

By M.K. Lim

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Dozens of women are jailed due to the allegations of practicing witchcraft.

     An atheist group in Malawi is pleading the current president president to release them.

     The Association of Secular Humanism wants President Bingu wa Mutharika to order the immediate release of 80 women where most are of elderly women, sentenced to up to six years imprisonment with hard labor.
  
     Most of the women were accused of teaching witchcraft to children in the southern African country.

     "The women are innocent," said a ASH spokesman, George Thindwa.

     Witchcraft is not a crime under Malawian law but the government has set up a committee to investigate criminalizing the practice.

     Recently Mutharika pardoned Malawi's first openly gay couple after sentencing them to 14 years' imprisonment thus ASH is keeping their fingers crossed for the president to also release the women in jail.