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During the Salem witch trials, many violations of today?s Universal Declaration of Human
Rights occurred. Inclusively, some are still being done today. Upon having a victim under
an acusation, many articles were not respected. This is shown in the manner in which past
time juries treated the accused. In my opinion, the articles that during those times were
violated were article four, five, article six, and seventeen.
Article four presents the idea of preventing a cruel or unaccepted treatment towards the
victim. It reads the following, "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". During the witch trials in Salem, those
who were declared guilty, depending on the charges he/she was accused of, the victim
might suffer a punishment of being hanged, and one person suffered being crushed under
rocks. If the declaration had been functioning during those past moments, it would have
occured, most likely, that the victims of the illegal charge of witchcraft, might have
been given a life-time jail sentence and not the death-penalty by being hanged or
crushed.
Another article that had been clearly violated during the Salem witch trials was article
five, which states that "everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person
before the law". Many thought of the women accused of practicing witchcraft to be
diabolic and inhuman ; in fact, they were thought of human figures of the devil. This
would clearly interfere with the judge?s veredict and it would be almost impossible for
the victimis to save themselves from being condemned to death. If these victims of whom
most were in their late fifties, had been seen as people who are just like us, they would
have been saved from such destiny.
Article Six is also a great, and maybe the clearest, example to prove the point of
violated human rights. This article says "all are equal before the law and entitled
without any discrimination to equal protection before the law. All are entitled to
protection against any discrimination in violation this Declaration and against any
incitement to such discrimination". In the witch trials of Salem, it was perfectly clear
that the twenty people that lost their lives were not considered nor treated equally in
comparison to the accusers. This occured most obviously because there were no laws that
would protect those who had been accused. We can see how unprofessional the system was
when the judge told Goody Cloyse to read a passage in the Bible without any mistakes to
prove her innocence, and, once she had done so, she was still declared guilty and was
sentenced. This article expresses that all people are entitled to protection, but none of
the victims of this complot were actually defended nor protected by issues of law and
more got saved of the horrible fate others had suffered.
Finally, the last article that in my consideration was violated during the Salem Witch
Trials is that one referred to as Article 15. This Article says "everyone has the right
to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right inclues the freedom to hold opinions
without interference". If the victims that were accused of witchcraft had really been
witches, they should have been respected as should in their freedom of religion, opinion,
and expression. Nowadays, witchcraft is accepted as another religions within many that
exist in our modern day societies. Clearly, neither the judges nor the accusers nor the
jury accepted this freedom and condemned it with the maximum penalty, death.
Perhaps there are many more rights in the Declaration of Human Rights that were also
violated during these trials, but the onces that to me are most clear, are the ones
dictated and explained. These trials had shown no respect to those victims of these
horrible accusations and once condemned, these people had no way of escaping death.
Nowadays, some violations are still being perpetrated, but at least our society has laws
to prevent these violations and our system has become more fair with the years.
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