Oct. 10
GLOBAL (in CANADA):
Celebrities protest death penalty
In MOntreal, French actor Catherine Deneuve and celebrity activist Bianca
Jagger were among several hundred demonstrators who took to the streets
yesterday calling for an end to the death penalty. "What counts is what we
do, not what we say," Deneuve said during a rally at a downtown park. "We
are here (to raise consciousness), that's what we hope."
Wearing sunglasses and a solemn expression, the Academy Award nominee was
hopeful the Canadian march would send a direct message to the United
States -- a country that still implements capital punishment.
"We hope that (the march) is a strong enough symbol . . . That it will
lead people to change their ideas on the death penalty," she said.
Canada has not had the death penalty since 1976 and most protesters said
they came out hoping to pressure the U.S. to abolish capital punishment.
Jagger, a goodwill ambassador for the Council of Europe, also made a
direct appeal to the United States to stop executing prisoners.
"The death penalty is biased," said Jagger, the ex-wife of Rolling Stones
singer Mick Jagger.
"The people who receive the death penalty are not those WHO commit the
worst crimes but those who cannot afford a good lawyer to defend them,"
Jagger said.
"In general, the people that are on death row today in America and in many
parts of the world are the poor, minorities, so how can (the death
penalty) be a just application of justice?
"I want to say to all of you throughout the world there is no room for the
death penalty in the 21st century."
Ray Krone, 47, was released 2 years ago after spending three years on
death row for murder in Arizona.
The American was exonerated after DNA evidence identified and convicted
the real killer. Krone described himself to the crowd as a "survivor of
the death penalty in America.
(source: London (Canada) Free Press)
********************
Crowded death row
Don't turn Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and their murderous ilk into
martyrs. That's the plea from Montreal, where people from around the world
have gathered to mark Oct. 10, world day against the death penalty.
Celebrities such as human rights activist Bianca Jagger and movie star
Catherine Deneuve are making common cause with former Irish president Mary
Robinson to appeal to the world's better angels, and against the
executioner.
Even for terrorists and despots.
"The execution of a condemned man is barbaric," Jagger told the Second
World Congress Against the Death Penalty, which met in Montreal this past
week. "The execution of an innocent man is murder."
Yet the drive to abolish the death penalty is in danger of faltering, in a
world made crueller by 9/11 and its violent aftermath.
Death by legal decree is a growth industry. Last year 1,146 people are
known to have been executed, most of them in China, Iran, the United
States and Vietnam, Amnesty International reports. But even more - 2,756 -
were condemned to die. Death row is getting crowded.
While Canada and 117 other countries have completely abolished the death
penalty, or don't use it, 66 continue to hang or shock criminals, stone
them, gas them, behead them, shoot them or poison them.
Worse yet, important, democratic countries like India, Indonesia and the
Philippines have started imposing the death penalty again, or threaten to,
after a long moratorium. One of "liberated" Iraq's 1st independent
decisions was to restore capital punishment.
Yet "the death penalty is the ultimate irreversible denial of human
rights," says Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary-general.
What could be more chilling than the controversial case of Paul House, an
American convicted of murdering a neighbour, on the basis of much-disputed
evidence. Considering his appeal this past week, a 15-judge panel split
almost evenly.
8 said he should be executed. 6 declared he was innocent. One said he
should be retried. If ever there were a case of "reasonable doubt," this
is it.
Even so, he will be executed, barring a Supreme Court intervention.
Canada abolished the death penalty completely in 1998, as unworthy of a
compassionate society, after retiring it for most crimes back in 1976.
Murderers here get life, with no parole for 25 years. Since 1976, our
murder rate has dropped sharply.
In a powerful, unanimous ruling in 2001, the Supreme Court found "there is
no convincing argument that exposure ... to death in prison by execution
advances Canada's public interest in a way that the alternative, eventual
death in prison by natural causes, would not."
There is toughness in those words, and rightly so. Few can pity a
murderer. But there is humanity, too. The death penalty brutalizes
societies that resort to it. It should be consigned to the history books.
(source: Toronto Star)
*******************
Jagger, death-row survivor march in Montreal
An innocent man released from death row and 2 world celebrities were among
the hundreds of social activists to march Saturday against capital
punishment, still practised in 66 countries.
French actress Catherine Deneuve and Bianca Jagger, a goodwill ambassador
for the Council of Europe, hoped that the march through a downtown
Montreal park would send a direct signal to the U.S. to abandon the death
penalty.
According to Jagger, most inmates on death row in the U.S. come from poor
families or ethnic minorities. "The death penalty is biased," she adds.
"The people who receive the death penalty are not those to commit the
worst crimes but those who cannot afford a good lawyer to defend them,"
Jagger said.
Among the crowd was 47-year-old Ray Krone, who was released in 2002 after
spending 3 years on death row for murder in Arizona.
DNA evidence cleared him of the crime, and the real killer was later
convicted.
"What happened in my country could happen to anyone," he said. "This may
be the end of our walk today but the path is still ahead of us, the fight
is still ahead of us."
There are about 3,700 U.S. prisoners currently on death row.
One of the marchers, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe, told the crowd
that countries like Canada, which abolished the death penalty in 1976,
must do more to convince those 66 countries to do the same.
Dressed in black, the activists each wore a sticker with the name of a
U.S. prisoner currently on death row. After the march, they lay on the
ground to represent the executed.
The march was held to mark the end of the 4-day World Congress Against the
Death Penalty that took place in Montreal.
(source: CBC News)
