Saturday, December 3, 2016

Pollsters Victims of Organ Theft Rumors (Peru)




Voice of America
2 December 2016


Reuters

LIMA —  One woman has been killed and some 40 people were arrested in a Peruvian shantytown after an angry mob tried to lynch two pollsters whom residents believed were butchering local children to take their organs, authorities said Friday.

False rumors on social media claiming dead children had been found with their organs missing fanned mass hysteria in the shantytown Huaycan on the outskirts of Lima, prompting residents to target two employees of a polling company who had been conducting door-to-door marketing surveys, said Police General Hugo Begazo.

"From one second to the next, people started to surround us," said visibly shaken Luis Nunez with polling firm Quantum in broadcast comments. "They nearly lynched us and set us on fire."

Police managed to pry Nunez and his colleague from the mob, which then attacked the police station in Huaycan where they were being held for their protection, Begazo said. […]