In Scotland, thousands of victims of witchcraft will be exonerated after 300 years

They have been accused of turning into animals, cursing the king’s ships, or dancing with the devil. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, thousands of women in Scotland were accused of witchcraft, and two-thirds of them were burned or killed. More than 300 years after the fact, a bill to whitewash victims of witch hunts held in the country has just recently been introduced in the Scottish Parliament. A long awaited apology.

An official pardon can be obtained for an estimated 3,837 people – 84% of whom are women – tried as witches in Scotland. More than three centuries after the repeal of the Law on Witchcraft (witchcraft act) In 1736, a bill introduced in the Scottish Parliament won the support of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to remove the names of those accused, reports RTL,

“It is right that this wrong should be corrected, that these men, who have been convicted, mostly women, be forgiven.”

nicola sturgeon, cited by World,

The bill to launder these witch-hunt victims was introduced after a two-year campaign by the active group witches of scotland (The Witches of Scotland, in French). In the United States, a legal precedent was set by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which declared the innocence of the victims of the Salem witch trials in 2001, recalls Guardian,

Scotland, a country particularly violent towards “witches”

According to historians, Scotland is one of the countries where witch hunts have been particularly rampant. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, he estimated that there were about 200,000 witch trials in the country and that resulted in the deaths of 50,000 to 100,000 women. There are said to be the number of witchcraft “four to five times higher than the European average”, according to an article by City Lab,

One-third of the accused women were allegedly burnt alive with stakes. “We absolutely excel at burning women in Scotland. The executioners were not guilty, so they should be acquitted.”, valuable Claire Mitchell QC, who is leading the campaign under witches of scotland, quoted by Guardian,

A bill seeking his pardon should be voted on by next year.