generalspeaking

Justice Prevails - In Time

Although there are still places in the world where people are accused of practising witchcraft, and where 'witches' are murdered to 'protect' the community, it is still hard to believe that at one time in the medieval world it was common practise for women to be accused by those who had a grudge against them or were jealous of them, and brought to 'trial' on witchcraft charges.

The penalty for practising witchcraft was, of course, immediate and final. Death to the accused. By immolation or by hanging, either would do. And it would make for a celebratory public spectacle. None, due to the temper of the times, would dare speak up for the accused lest they too be accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch Trials were infamous for the scope and brutality of their miserable practises.


How did that old test of whether one was legitimately a witch or not, go, now? One was a test of water. If the accused, bound and immersed in a body of water sank, they were innocent. If they floated, they were clearly guilty as charged and their stern discipline of death deserved. The innocent sank to their deaths then, and the guilty floated, surviving to be hanged or put to the fiery stake. Not much of a chance at justice.

And as though to challenge that old adage that "Justice delayed is justice denied", a woman who had been a victim of a witch-hunt in Germany and burned at the stake in Cologne in 1627 has been pardoned. She had been blamed for causing a plague of caterpillars. But finally, 385 years after her death,city councillors agreed to re-open the case of Katharina Henot.

She had been tortured and paraded through the streets of the city, and then provided further entertainment for the onlookers by being strangled and burnt at the stake. New evidence exonerating her was presented to the current city council. She had been arrested on false sorcery charges relating to a political dispute.

Between 1500 and 1782 witch-hunts in Germany had claimed 25,000 innocent victims. Since that time, thirteen towns and cities have taken formal steps to exonerate many of those convicted witches. It only took 385 years for justice to prevail, after all.

Labels: Germany, Human Relations, Social-Cultural Deviations, Terrorism, Tragedy

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, February 14, 2012