© Clerical Whispers
Government will not protect people who use witchcraft and other supernatural powers to harm others, a Cabinet Minister has said. Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa said any person who could provide evidence to show that one was a witch could escape criminal prosecution.
The minister said this yesterday in the Senate while responding to inquiries from Mutasa-Nyanga Senator Patrick Chitaka (MDC-T) who had asked why the Government was not repealing the Witchcraft and Suppression Act considering that the practice was rampant in the African culture.
The question was posed when Minister Chinamasa was steering for the ratification of a Swakopmund Protocol that seeks to protect traditional knowledge and medicine.
The minister said the Witchcraft and Suppression Act was repealed a long time ago and replaced by the Criminal Codification and Reform Act.
"Clearly if you point out that someone was a witch, it is defamatory.
"But if you can prove it that someone was found with a human hand that is enough proof," he said.
"If you can open a grave and eat its contents, that's enough proof."
Minister Chinamasa said witchcraft allegations have in the past divided families.
Hardworking and wealthier families, he said, have usually been the target of such allegations.
The usual allegations, he said, were that these wealthier families were using poor families to work in their fields at night.
"If you can prove that, then it is witchcraft.