Christopher Kimberley wrote:
>
>
> This may interest some here.
>
> All the best
>
> Chris
> The Glarus Parliament rehabilitates "the last witch in Europe ",
> decapitated 225 years ago
Here's a link to a another article treating of
the 'rehabilitation' of Anna Göldi :
MPs seek pardon for maid framed by rich lover
and executed as witch
http://tinyurl.com/yuxmt7
A dark tale of adultery, witchcraft and murder could end
today, 225 years after it began, with a decision to
rehabilitate the last witch to be executed by a court of law
in Europe.
Anna Göldi, a maid, was beheaded after being found guilty of
witchcraft by a court in the Swiss Alpine town of Glarus, in
1782. Campaigners including journalists, lawyers and MPs are
now demanding an official rehabilitation, arguing that she
was a victim of a conspiracy between the local church and
the judiciary.
“The authorities must apologise for this historic injustice
and take responsibility for an innocent victim of juridical
persecution. We were the last to murder a ‘witch’, and we
should be the first to pardon one,” said Walter Hauser, a
lawyer and author who initiated the campaign. MPs have taken
the matter to the Glarus cantonal parliament after local
authorities refused to declare an official rehabilitation of
the unfortunate maid.
This year Mr Hauser published a bestselling book called The
Juridical Murder of Anna Göldi, revealing evidence that he
found in local archives that shows how Göldi was denounced
by her employer, Dr Johannes Tschudi, an influential judge
and politician who apparently got her pregnant and then
orchestrated a mock trial that led to her execution.
Göldi, 40, is believed to have wanted to make public her
amorous relationship with Tschudi, a married father of two.
To avoid being stripped from all public offices, as
adulterers would have been in those days, the wealthy judge
conspired with his friends and relatives in the church and
the court to charge her for attempting to poison his
children by witchcraft.
Göldi was tortured into making a full confession, and was
subsequently decapitated with a sword by a court
executioner, the last of the tens of thousands of alleged
witches that were put to death by courts across Europe.
The case sparked an international scandal at the time after
a court clerk copied the trial files detailing the
witchcraft charges and the torture and leaked them to a
liberal German newspaper, which accused Switzerland of
medieval practices in the Enlightenment Age.
Margaret Vuichard, a Glarus MP for the Greens who is
supporting the rehabilitation campaign, told The Times: “The
fate of this poor maid is compelling. An official
rehabilitation would be a symbolic gesture that would also
honour the thousands of women who suffered horrible deaths
as victims of such absurd trials.”
The witch-hunt began in the early 14th century in Europe and
more than 50,000 people, mostly women, were burnt, hanged or
beheaded over the following three centuries for practising
witchcraft. The Glarus case happened when persecution had
virtually ceased and more than 90 years after the famous
witch trials in the American town of Salem, described in
Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible.
The story of Göldi has been told in two novels, a film and a
BBC documentary. An Anna Göldi museum was opened this year
and a foundation bearing her name was established with the
declared aim of fighting injustice in the judiciary and
promoting minority rights and press freedom.
But despite the ever-growing prominence of the case, the
Glarus evangelical church and the local government refuse to
offer any official apologies. A spokesperson for the local
government said that Göldi’s innocence was beyond dispute
and that an official rehabilitation was not necessary.
============================
There is also mention made at the bottom of
this article of the case of Mustapha Ibrahim,
who was executed for practicing sorcery in
Saudi Arabia on November 2nd of 2007, that
is, last Friday < as of this writing >.
If sorcery were to be re-instated as a going
concern here in the States, would it perhaps
follow that the old Witchcraft Statutes would
be brought back into play?
Cors in Manu Domine,
~ Khem
|