Utah bill aims to define ritualistic sexual abuse of minors, Kenya death cult leader charged after hundreds found dead in forest
Utah bill aims to define ritualistic sexual abuse of minors by Jim Spiewak, KUTVTue, January 23rd 2024 SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A new bill seeks to define "ritualistic sexual abuse" of children, a term that sparked public interest and grabbed headlines last year after a public spat between the Utah County Sheriff and a former Utah County Attorney over ongoing ritualistic investigations. Survivor Brett Bluth, who said he was ritually abused by a therapist over twenty years ago, helped write House Bill 196. He described how religious practices were exploited to facilitate the abuse.
"I have struggled with that very thing for many years." The bill aims to clearly define ritualistic sexual abuse, specifying it as an act that commemorates or celebrates an important event in a religious, cultural, social, or institutional context, which is then used to sexually abuse a child. "It's particularly heinous when a perpetrator uses a familiar component in our society, or culture or religion to coerce a child, to trick a child into coming closer," Bluth said.
Rep. Ken Ivory (R – Salt Lake County), is sponsoring the bill. Bluth said the fact that the bill has been filed shows how far this issue has come, saying, "This is the first time those words 'ritual abuse' are going to be brought into this building (State Capitol) in Utah history." If passed, the legislation would focus only on the sexual abuse of minors.
https://kmyu.tv/news/local/utah-bill-aims-to-define-ritualistic-sexual-abuse-of-minors-utah-county-sheriff-former-attorney-therapist-religious-practices
Kenya death cult leader charged after hundreds found dead in forest
Self-proclaimed pastor arrested over deaths of more than 200 people, most of whom had died of hunger Agence France-Presse in Nairobi Tue 23 Jan 2024
Paul Nthenge Mackenzie (centre) is alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to ‘meet Jesus’. A Kenyan court has charged a cult leader and dozens of suspected accomplices with manslaughter over the deaths of more than 200 people. Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 94 other suspects, including his wife, pleaded not guilty to 238 counts of manslaughter, according to court documents seen by AFP.
Mackenzie, who was last week also charged with terrorism, is alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to “meet Jesus” in a case that provoked horror across the world. He was arrested last April after bodies were discovered in the Shakahola forest near the Indian Ocean. Autopsies revealed that the majority of the 429 victims had died of hunger. Others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.
The site of a mass grave in Shakahola outside the coastal town of Malindi after the exhumation of bodies. The 238 victims mentioned in Tuesday’s hearing were killed between January 2021 and September 2023 at Shakahola, court documents said.
The grisly case, dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre”, led the government to flag the need for tighter control of fringe denominations. Police and residents carry the exhumed bodies of victims of Paul Mackenzie Nthenge’s religious cult through the village of Shakahola last week.
Questions have been raised about how Mackenzie managed to evade law enforcement despite having a history of extremism and previous legal cases. A Senate commission of inquiry reported in October that the father of seven had faced charges in 2017 for extreme preaching. He was acquitted of charges of radicalisation in 2017 for illegally providing school teaching after rejecting the formal educational system that he claimed was not in line with the Bible.
In 2019, he was also accused of having links to the death of two children believed to have been starved, suffocated and then buried in a shallow grave in Shakahola. He was released on bail pending that trial, which is ongoing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/23/kenya-death-cult-leader-charged-after-hundreds-found-dead-in-forest
