Scotland is preparing to posthumously pardon thousands of people who were charged and executed for witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Between the 16th and 18th century 3,873 people were accused of witchcraft, according to The Times of London. Of those accused, 2,600 were convicted and executed. They were typically strangled and burnt at the stake after they were subjected to torture.
Nearly 300 years after Scotland’s witchcraft laws were repealed, a bill in the Scottish parliament is gaining traction following a two-year campaign to have the names cleared for crimes such as cursing the king’s ships or turning into an owl, the paper reported.
Attorney Claire Mitchell leads activist group Witches of Scotland, which wants to have the names of the convicted legally cleared, a written apology letter from the government and a monument established in their memory.
“Per capita, during the period between the 16th to the 18th century, we executed five times as many people as elsewhere in Europe, the vast majority of them women,” Mitchell told The Times.
“To put that into perspective, in Salem 300 people were accused and 19 people were executed. We absolutely excelled at finding women to burn in Scotland. Those executed weren’t guilty, so they should be acquitted.”
In 2001, The Massachusetts House of Representatives officially proclaimed those tried for witchcraft in Salem as innocent.
Natalie Don, a Scottish National Party member of the Scottish Parliament, is behind a bill that could be passed next summer.
“It is right that this wrong should be righted, that these people who were criminalized, mostly women, should be pardoned,” she told The Times.
The Church of Scotland is expected to issue an apology for its role in the “mistreatment and execution” of the thousands accused of witchcraft.