Women executed 300 years ago as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

[douglas9]

From allegations of cursing the king’s ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil, a satanic panic in early modern Scotland meant that thousands of women were accused of witchcraft in the 16th-18th centuries with many executed.

Now, three centuries after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, campaigners are on course to win pardons and official apologies for the estimated 3,837 people – 84% of whom were women – tried as witches, of which two-thirds were executed and burned.

After a two-year campaign by the Witches of Scotland group, a member’s bill in the Scottish parliament has secured the support of Nicola Sturgeon’s administration to clear the names of those accused, the Sunday Times reported. The move follows a precedent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the US that proclaimed victims of the Salem witch trials innocent in 2001.



https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/19/executed-witches-scotland-pardons-witchcraft-act

[delisen]

1. Too bad they are too dead to appreciate delayed justice. nt

[Chainfire]

2. Wait just a minute.

With all of the evidence gone, who is to say that they were not witches?

[milestogo]

3. Now THOSE were witch hunts.

[Sneederbunk]

4. Doesn't do anything for them but

makes living witches feel good.

[highplainsdem]

5. Now let them retroactively condemn all officials and clerics who had roles

in that insanity, and remove any statues, etc., honoring them.

[niyad]

6. Exactly.