MSP seeks legal pardon for witchcraft convicted
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An MSP has launched a consultation on a new bill to pardon the thousands of Scots convicted of witchcraft.
Natalie Don, an SNP MSP, has launched a member’s bill to “right the historic wrong of witchcraft convictions” and pardon those convicted.
The move follows an apology from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on International Women’s Day, in March, to those who were convicted under the Witchcraft Act 1563.
She said in March: “At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as witnesses in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different, vulnerable or in many cases just because they were women.
“It was injustice on a colossal scale, driven at least in part by misogyny in its most literal sense, hatred of women.
Some 4,000 Scots, most of them women, fell foul of the law between 1563 and 1736.
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