Campaigners demanding a pardon for women executed as witches are taking their fight to the Scottish Parliament.
MSPs on the petitions committee will consider the Witches of Scotland demand to pardon those killed as witches tomorrow.
Launched by Claire Mitchell QC and writer Zoe Venditozzi last year, The Witches of Scotland campaign aims to right “a terrible miscarriage of justice ” which saw more than 2500 people executed in Scotland between 1563 and 1736, when the Witchcraft Act was law.
The Scottish Government accepts the act was “discriminatory” and has given campaigners hope there will be a pardon for women and men who died.
Claire, who produces a podcast on the issue, said: “Eighty-five per cent of the people executed were women.
“We wanted to raise awareness of the issue, tell the stories of what happened to these women and have a proper historical record but at the same time these people were accused under the law of witchcraft, tried and then executed.
“It was a terrible miscarriage of justice that needs to be put right.”
She added: “Witchcraft accusations still go on in some countries. The UN is trying to protect these people – this isn’t just something that happened hundreds of years ago.”
The QC said the women’s “confessions” were routinely gained through torture and then they would be killed.
“They would be strangled then burned at the stake. Scotland had five times as many witchcraft cases as Europe. It seemed to be a panic reaction.
“Those accused were vulnerable members of society and they were used as scapegoats.”
On Sunday, campaigners erected a plaque to remember those executed as part of a witchhunt in Edinburgh’s Corstorphine.
Six women and one man were killed, including 80-year-old Katharin Gibb, who confessed to sex and a pact with the devil when she was 20.
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