Voodooism is a 'protected religious belief' according to an employment tribunal

The name might conjure images of pins being stuck into effigies – but voodoo is a protected religious belief, an employment tribunal has ruled for the first time.

The religion has ‘clear teachings’ and ‘tries to explain mankind’s place in the universe’ with its concepts of spirits and divinity, a panel said.

As such, voodooism is ‘more than just an opinion’, meaning its followers cannot be discriminated against under workplace equality laws.

The ruling came in the case of a council worker who sued his employers for racial and religious harassment after a colleague said: ‘I’m like a voodoo doll with needles in her eyes.’

Carl Wint is not a believer in voodoo but argued that as a Christian he was offended by the mention of the other religion, and the comment was made because he has Jamaican heritage.

The support officer for young people lost his case against Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council after the panel found it was a ‘poorly judged throwaway comment’ that was not directed at him.

Voodooism is ‘more than just an opinion’, meaning its followers cannot be discriminated against under workplace equality laws. Picture: A voodoo Chief blesses a voodoo worshipper during the annual Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, Benin, west Africa

Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council

The Birmingham tribunal heard that colleague Mandy Shone made the ‘voodoo’ remark in reference to how exhausted she was on a night shift, comparing herself to a doll with pins keeping her eyes open.

Ms Shone said she would have made the same comment in front of a white colleague.

To determine if Mr Wint had been harassed the tribunal had to first decide if voodoo should be a protected belief, which has never been tested.

Employment judge Kate Edmonds concluded the practice does constitute a religion, despite not having a central text, as there are ‘clear teachings’ for followers to live by.

However, in Mr Wint’s case, because the comment was not directed at him and merely ‘thoughtless’, it did not constitute harassment.

The tribunal also found that a belief solely in voodoo dolls would not be protected as they are not an ‘authentic element’ of voodoo and are misrepresented in popular culture.

Based on traditional African practices, voodoo is followed mainly in the Caribbean.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14370615/voodooism-protected-religious-belief.html

Fall under the voodoo spell

New Orleans has become synonymous with voodoo and various tourist shops sell trinkets and dolls

Voodoo is a very real – and culturally important – religion in these parts, with its own mythologies, saints and rituals. Its roots can be traced back to West African tribes who, in the 18th Century, were kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to Brazil, Haiti and Louisiana. Many were forced to practise Catholicism and so voodoo is something of a melting pot.

New Orleans has become synonymous with voodoo and various tourist shops sell trinkets and dolls. The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum (voodoomuseum.com) offers a good introduction

Haiti's Voodoo-obsessed 'Papa Doc' would stick pins in effigies of his enemies and kept the frozen head of an executed rebel leader so he could commune with his spirit

It began with a rigged election and a promise to end the repression of Haiti's black population. But it didn't take long for Francois Duvalier (above) - the bespectacled doctor who took up the reins of power in September 1957 - to show his darker side

By the time 'Papa Doc' passed away in 1971, tens of thousands Haitians had died at his hands. His son, Jean-Claude, who was known as 'Baby Doc', was equally brutal.

Papa Doc modeled himself on a spiritual figure named Baron Samedi, a deity in Haiti's national religion of voodoo.

Samedi is depicted with eerie skeleton make-up, a black tuxedo and white top-hat and speaks in a strange, nasal voice.

Papa Doc adopted the mystical icon's love of rum and debauchery and also satisfied his exotic sexual fantasies with any Haitian of his choice.

Walking dead: Zombie Baron Samedi in James Bond classic Live and Let Die.

The people of Haiti are fearful of being zombified in real life

Papa Doc used the feared Tonton Moucoutes to strike fear into his opponents. The group, who were more powerful than the army and police, were allowed to plunder at will.

Enemies of the state would be snatched away to be tortured in the dungeons of Haiti's Fort Dimanche.

When Papa Doc discovered that the leader of the Tonton Macoutes, Clement Barbot, was plotting to topple him, he had him imprisoned.

When Barbot escaped, Papa Doc was told he had turned himself into a black dog to evade capture. This prompted the maniacal Haitian leader to order his men to kill every black dog in Haiti.

An armed member of the Tonton Macoute controls crowds in the streets of Port-au-Prince

The Tonton Macoute, the brutal secret police of Haitian President ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, were said to employ powerful sorcerers and threaten zombification to quell resistance among the superstitious populace.

When Pope John Paul II visited the island in 1983, he announced that 'things must change here'. Above: The Pope with Baby Doc and his wife Michele

Haitians were encouraged to give blood in the spirit of patriotism. But because the same needle was used repeatedly, the practice sparked an Aids epidemic.

The organs of executed prisoners were marketed for transplants.

Mobsters burned alive, public stonings, gang-rape, ransom demands and political assassinations: How violence gripped Haiti - with civilians carrying out brutal executions to reclaim the streets

The assassination of president Jovenel Moïse plunged Haiti into chaos
Now Haiti's capital is overrun by gangs

Haiti is described as a failed state.

hundreds of highly organised and extremely violent criminal groups have poured into the power vacuum left by the assassination. The gangs have a stranglehold over Haiti - carrying out brutal killings, gang rapes and kidnappings to control the population.

The poorest country in Latin America descended into bloodshed and chaos after its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated

Pictured: Leader of the 'G9 and Family' gang, Jimmy 'Barbecue' Cherizier, who denies he got his nickname for burning people alive.

A man assists an injured woman in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The United Nations said gangs had control of 80 percent of the country's capital of Port-au-Prince, home to more than two million people. Others say it is 100 percent.

Murders, rapes and kidnappings have become commonplace, with UN Secretary General António Guterres saying violence in Haiti had reached levels similar to that of a country at war.

Haitians are taking matters into their own hands, doling out violence of their own in the form of extreme vigilantism.

In a gruesome act of violence, an angry crowd dragged gangsters out of a van and threw stones at their heads, covered them with tyres, poured gasoline over them - and burned them alive. Similar to Winnie Mandela's "Necklace" technique.

Pictured: This is the horrifying moment Haitian gang members are seen begging for mercy before a vigilante lynch mob stones and burns them alive

Thick black smoke rose over the neighbourhoods as residents watching the grizzly scene covered their noses against the foul odour.

Bystanders gather around the bodies of gang members that were set on fire by the mob

Shots could be heard ringing out from several neighbourhoods

Smoke rises above buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where gang members were burned alive by a vigilante mob

Map of Haiti, with the Dominican Republic to the east. President Grant tried to buy the Dominican Republic in the 1870s but was thwarted by his enemies in Congress.

There are now thought to be around 200 gangs operating in Haiti including almost 100 in the capital alone, controlling everything from drugs and arms smuggling, to airports, factories and power plants.

Port-au-Prince has become a patchwork of territories whose brutal leaders are free to operate as they please, warring over territory and revenging on each-other in an ever-escalating spiral of violence.

This has plunged Haiti - already the Western Hemisphere's poorest country - into a dire humanitarian crisis, with hunger soaring and disease spreading.

With no one willing or able to quell the gang's influence, there is no end in sight.

In one ten-day orgy of violence in Port-au-Prince, gangs waged open warfare against each other in Cité Soleil - one of the capital's slums home to 250,000 - launching raids into rival territory, where they shot civilians on sight.

Gangsters stormed into people's homes and raped any woman they found.

As citizens attempted to escape down the main road, they were shot in the streets. Bodies were burned rather than buried.

Pictured: A member of the G-9 gang

A masked man adds fuel to a burning barricade on a street along with members of the gang led by Jimmy Cherizier, alias Barbecue.

Former police officer Jimmy 'Barbecue' Cherizier, leader of the 'G9' coalition of gangs

While many of the victims of gang warfare are found with bullet wounds, others were beheaded with machetes.

Some bodies are thrown on to piles of garbage where pigs feed on them. Other bodies are dismembered and burned, or thrown into a river.

While Haiti's gangs use rape and murder as a way to intimidate the population, one of the most prevalent crimes has become kidnapping for ransom.

Most victims are returned alive if the ransom is paid - but are brutally treated.

'Men are beaten and burned with materials like melted plastic. Women and girls are subject to gang rape.

'This situation spurs relatives to find money to pay ransom. Sometimes kidnappers call the relatives so they can hear the rape being carried out on the phone.'

Hundreds of witchcraft and voodoo crimes have been probed by police forces across the UK

A voodoo doll and other items associated with the occult. An information request by The Sun to Britain's police forces found that coppers have had to deal with a surprising number of cases of alleged uses of black magic

Some of the most bizarre cases uncovered included a suspect West Mercia police were hunting who sent letters threatening to use voodoo techniques to harm them and North Wales police had to deal with threats from a man that he would use black magic on his probation officer.

Wild times: Voodoo dancer (pictured) in Togo struts his stuff

In Togo there are more than two million followers of voodoo who believe spirits govern nature and society, and that each tree, river and place has its own spirit.

Through ceremonies involving music, dance, song and symbolic acts, they try to appease and beseech these spirits.

Ghana’s Cape Coast castle was a former slave prison. Many Africans were sold from there

Ouidah in Benin is known as the City of Voodoo and the spiritual capital of the country.

Here is found the Kpasse Sacred Forest, full of huge concrete statues of deities such as Shango, the god of thunder, and Dan the rainbow serpent.

Ouidah in Benin (seen above) is known as the City of Voodoo and is the spiritual capital of the country

At Ouidah is the Temple of the Sacred Pythons, where the snakes are kept and brought out by initiates marked by facial scars to drape around the necks of curious visitors.

Benin is home to thousands of sacred forests. In this picture, Gilbert Kakpo, a Voodoo priest, is seen beside a sacred tree in the Bohouezoun sacred forest that's said to protect women