La caza de brujas es la búsqueda de brujos, brujas o pruebas de brujería, que llevaba a acusar a la persona afectada de brujería, a un juicio y finalmente a una condena. Muchas culturas, tanto antiguas como modernas, han reaccionado de forma puntual a las acusaciones de brujería con miedo supersticioso y han castigado, o incluso asesinado, a los presuntos o presuntas practicantes. La caza de brujas como fenómeno generalizado es característica de la Europa Central a inicios de la Edad Moderna. Base para la persecución masiva de mujeres (puntualmente también menores y hombres e incluso animales) por la Iglesia y sobre todo por la justicia civil, fue la idea, extendida entre teólogos y juristas, de una conspiración del Demonio para acabar con la Cristiandad. Las cazas de brujas todavía ocurren en la actualidad y suelen clasificarse dentro del llamado pánico moral. De forma general, el término ha llegado a denotar la persecución de un enemigo percibido (habitualmente un grupo social no conformista) de forma extremadamente sesgada e independiente de la inocencia o culpabilidad real.

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A witch-hunt is a search for people labelled "witches" or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic or mass hysteria. \n* The classical period of witchhunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial North America falls into the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 1,000,000 executions. \n* Europe: The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. \n* Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727. \n* Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735. \n* Germany: Sorcery remained punishable by law into the late 18th century \n* Africa, Asia and Australia: Contemporary witch-hunts have also been reported from Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea. \n* Cameroon and Saudi Arabia: Official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon. \n* From at least the 1930s, the term "witch-hunt" has been used figuratively to describe activities by governments (and, occasionally, by business entities) to seek out and expose perceived enemies, often apparently as a means of directing public opinion by fostering a degree of moral panic. \n* The Second Red Scare of the 1950s, culminating in the McCarthyist persecution of suspected communists in the United States, is especially associated with this usage of the term "witch hunt." \n* In India, around 2,100 suspected, mostly women, witches were murdered between 2000 and 2012 in India's tribal and Dalit communities.

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