What next ? how far do you go back ?

Littlenige



Joined: 24/12/2006
Posts: 3594

Message Posted:
02/11/2008 16:13

Executed witches should get posthumous pardon





By Jason Beattie 1/11/2008



Campaigners yesterday called for executed witches to get a posthumous pardon.



A Halloween day petition handed to Justice Secretary Jack Straw said 400 people in England and 2,000 in Scotland were killed for alleged witchcraft during the Middle Ages. It described them as being victims of a grave "miscarriages of justice" and called on Mr Straw to follow the example of the Swiss government.



The Swiss recently granted a pardon to Anna Goeldi, the last person executed as a witch in Europe in 1782.



Dr John Callow, author of Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe, said the witch trials were "legalised murder".



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He added: "Crops failed, butter failed to churn or cattle sickened and the blame was often settled on witches."



Fellow campaigner Emma Angel, head of the Angels Fancy Dress agency, said: "We were gobsmacked to discover

Groucho



Joined: 26/04/2008
Posts: 7993

Message Posted:
02/11/2008 16:34

I think it would be a sensible rule of thumb that only people who have a living relative who actually knew them should be eligible for a posthumus pardon... but I may be being too harsh...



I do think a blanket pardon for witchcraft related prosecutions is probably unworkable because, although they may have been deluded, there were pople who practised witchcraft to the supposed detriment of others...



I think people executed for cowardice during WWI and WWII ought to be pardoned given what we know about Post Traumatic Stress these days...



The systematic murder of children dubbed "changelings" is worth looking at... what a scandal that was... led by the Christian Church too....