Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Claimed spiritual healing or mediumship Pandeglang, Banten, Indonesia · 2023

Indonesia: 'magical healing' practitioner jailed for eleven years after a year of ritual-pretext rape

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

practitioner of 'pengobatan gaib' (magical healing)

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

CORE, and a pure instance of the mechanism: no force was needed because refusal was framed as inviting supernatural harm. The victim complied for a year because stopping was presented as the dangerous choice.

  • Spiritual healing or treatment
  • Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2023-09-18 · conviction and sentence

    Pengadilan Negeri Pandeglang, Indonesia (Perkara No. 136/Pid.Sus/2023/PN Pdl). Royani, a practitioner of 'pengobatan gaib' or magical healing, was convicted on 18 September 2023 and sentenced to eleven years plus a fine of one hundred million rupiah, for sexually exploiting a victim between March 2022 and February 2023 under the threat that failing to complete the ritual he prescribed would bring harm.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • the claim that a ritual had to be completed or harm would follow
  • bodily fluids demanded as the ritual's requirement
  • a year of repeated compliance secured by that threat

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Detik: report of the Pandeglang conviction and sentence.

National outlet's court report.

Related record

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