Sturgeon offers formal apology to persecuted witches

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made a formal apology, on behalf of the Scottish Government, to thousands of people, mostly women, persecuted under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

That epidemic seems to be getting worse, not better. The problem is real and very current, but the misogyny that motivates it is age old. That is why I want to focus the remainder of my remarks on two issues, one of which is deeply historic and one of which is contemporary. However, they are linked by the common thread of misogyny.

Opening a Holyrood debate to mark International Women's Day, Ms Sturgeon referred to a petition before the Parliament that demands a pardon for the more than 4,000 people accused of, and in many cases convicted and executed for, being witches between the passing of the Act and its repeal in 1735.

"Those who met that fate were not witches; they were people," she said, "and they were overwhelmingly women. At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as a witness in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different or vulnerable or, in many cases, just because they were women. That was injustice on a colossal scale that was driven, at least in part, by misogyny in its most literal sense: hatred of women."

The First Minister continued: "The pardon that the petition calls for would require the Parliament to legislate and, in future, it may choose to do so. In the meantime, the petition also calls for an apology – after all, those accusations and executions were instigated and perpetrated by the state. Therefore, today, on International Women’s Day, as First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government, I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and to extend a formal posthumous apology to all those who were accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the Witchcraft Act 1563."

To those who would ask why this generation should say sorry for something that happened centuries ago, Ms Sturgeon offered three reasons: 

• first, acknowledging injustice – no matter how historic – is important;
• secondly, for some, the issue is not yet historic, as even today, in some parts of the world women and girls face persecution and sometimes death;
• thirdly, the deep misogyny that motivated the Act has fundamentally not been eradicated. "Today, it expresses itself not in claims of witchcraft but in everyday harassment, online rape threats and sexual violence. All that is intensified by an increasingly polarised and toxic public discourse and amplified each and every day by social media."

The apology marks a success for the campaign run for the past two years by Claire Mitchell QC and writer Zoe Venditozzi, who also organised the petition. In addition to an apology and legal pardon, the campaign also seeks a national monument to those killed.