Here's an update on the results of the Advocacy campaign launched by SAPRA and the SAPC - 29 March to 27 April 2008.

Despite having sent a copy of A Pagan Witches TouchStone to every government department including Parliament, the Presidency and the SA Human Rights Commission, no one except the secretary of Helen Zille bothered to acknowledge receipt.

No-one thought the murder of hundreds of innocent South Africans falsely accused of practicing Witchcraft needed any attention at all. The silence is deafening.

A reporter who covered the launch of the campaign for the Roodepoort Record was threatened by a local Pastor as a result of writing the article. I reminded him that it proves religious prejudice is being used by South Africans every day to discriminate against persons who define
themselves as Witches / Pagans, and this, despite the constitutional protection of belief and religion. If the prejudiced against Witchcraft were to replace the word 'Witch' with the word 'woman' or 'black man' this government would use every means at its disposal to fight prejudice based on gender and race.

This campaign will be re-run and will be intensified every year from now on until we get an appropriate response from Government. The South African Pagan Rights Alliance (SAPRA) will be following up on our unanswered correspondence to Government. We will not be ignored. People are still being accused and "hunted". We won't ignore their plight.

If you assisted in any way during this campaign I'd like to thank you for taking your destiny into your own hands and for taking a stand against Witch-hunts in South Africa.

Here is the interview I conducted with the Roodepoort Record. As soon as I get a copy of the published article I will post it here.

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Tertius Nel [Roodepoort Record] wrote:

Dear Mr Leff,

My name is Tertius Nel and I am a journalist for the Roodepoort Record. We have received your email on the "Melville Mandate" but I have a question. I spoke to a police officer who deals with these issues and he claims that Paganism (and Stanism) was never illegal in South Africa. He said only certain rituals associated with Paganism are considered illegal. He used words like "drinking animal blood" , "drinking human blood" and "nudity". What is your opinion on this? Surely this negates your mandate?

My response:

Dear Tertius Nel

Thank you for your correspondence.

Self-defined Witches have never been tried under the Witchcraft Suppression Act for claiming to be Witches, even though the Act states that to admit to being a Witch or to have knowledge of Witchcraft is a criminal offence. Witchcraft however has been and is still being treated as a potentially criminal practice by the SAPS despite the fact that the SAPS can show no verifiable evidence of criminality on the part of self-defined Witches in South Africa.

The Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 was used to suppress the practices of traditional healers, but these practices were never defined by traditional healers as Witchcraft. Traditional healers by their own admission do not practice Witchcraft. Both the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 and the more recent Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill (2007) criminalise Witchcraft by automatically associating Witchcraft with such criminal practices as muti murders and blood sacrifices.

To associate "drinking animal blood" and "drinking human blood" with Paganism is a gross and criminal misrepresentation of our religious practices. Pagans (most of whom are self-defined Witches) do not engage in muti murders and we do not practice blood sacrifices (neither animal nor human).

The SAPS are assuming that muti murders and ritual sacrifices are a necesary part of Witchcraft and that criminal activities such as muti murders and ritual sacrifices are perpetrated by Witches, but the SAPS are mistaking criminal practices associated with a misapplication of traditional African magical practices for the practice of Witchcraft.

The evidence will show that the muti-murderers themselves are not self-defined Witches and are most often employed by unscrupulous traditional healers - traditional healers who do not define themselves as Witches, and who therefore do not practice Witchcraft. (See pages 38 to 41 on muti-murders - 'A Pagan Witches TouchStone'.)

Self-defined Witches are in fact not guilty of the assumption of guilt imposed on us by society in general, and reinforced not only by the 1957 Act, but also by the SAPS's definition of 'Occult-related Crime'. (See pages 49 and 50 on the definition of Occult-related Crime - 'A Pagan Witches TouchStone'.)

Self-defined Witches are also not the victims of Witch hunts in this country. But when the Witch hunters yell 'burn the Witch' at innocent women, men and children, people who have never self-defined as Witches, self-defined Witches cannot sit back and say, well at least we're not being hunted. We are saying stop the Witch hunting. We are saying people in general don't know anything about Witchcraft other than that which has been informed through religious prejudice and urban legends. It's time to stop the hatred of the other you do not know.

The opinion of the police officer with whom you spoke does not in any way negate our given mandate to reclaim the terms Witch and Witchcraft - to reclaim these terms from centuries or religious prejudice, prejudice reinforced today in this country by apartheid legislation (the 1957 Act) that portrays the Witch and Witchcraft as a threat to society and in so doing, discriminates and encourages discrimination against self-defined Witches.

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