Oct. 14
GLOBAL:
AI Index: ACT 50/017/2004 (Public) ---- News Service No: 250----7 October
2004
Death Penalty: Speech by Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty
International, Second World Congress against the Death Penalty----6
October, Montreal, Canada
"From goal to reality: Strategies to create a world without the death
penalty"
Amnesty International is proud to be here at this Conference as a member
of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty.
This Second World Congress against the Death Penalty offers a great
opportunity for all of us to reflect on our work, to exchange ideas and to
forge common strategies and working relationships.
As you know, abolition of the death penalty has been a hallmark of Amnesty
International's concerns from the time the organisation was created in
1961. In opposing it, Amnesty International members spoke out against what
was permissible under international law. For us, it was and is a matter of
human values, going beyond law.
We are proud to join organisations and people from around the world, of
different nationalities, faith, age and gender, in a common struggle to
end the death penalty globally. Just look at the diversity in this room.
The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights,
because it contravenes the essence of human values. It is often applied in
a discriminatory manner, follows unfair trials, or is applied for
political reasons. It is not a unique deterrent against crime, and is an
irreversible error when there is miscarriage of justice.
In 1977, Amnesty International organised its first International
Conference on the Death Penalty in Stockholm bringing together 200
participants from five continents. That was the start of our public
campaign to abolish the death penalty. It was followed by a global survey
of capital punishment and a public campaign which culminated in 1980, with
an appeal to the UN which was signed by Nobel Laureates, prominent
personalities and ordinary people from over 100 countries.
Things have changed considerably since then. In 1977, when Amnesty
International organised its first International Conference on the Death
Penalty in Stockholm, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty
for all crimes. Today, we face a very different situation -- five times
that figure, 80 countries, have now abolished the death penalty for all
crimes, 15 countries have abolished it for all but exceptional crimes, and
another 23 have the death penalty on their books but have not carried out
executions for the past ten years or have made an international commitment
not to use the death penalty. Turkey is the most recent to join the ranks
of abolitionists.
As you know, there are now four abolitionist treaties, the Second Optional
Protocol to the ICCPR, the two European Protocols and the Protocol to the
American Convention on Human Rights to abolish the death penalty.
Abolition is winning but there is still a long way to get there. During
2003, at least 1146 persons were executed in 28 countries. At least 2756
persons were sentenced to death in 63 countries. These numbers reflect
only cases known to Amnesty International. The true figures are certainly
higher.
In 2003, 84 % of all known executions took place in China, Iran, USA and
Viet Nam.
A heightened concern for security and crime control continue to be drivers
for the death penalty in many countries of the world.
Earlier this year Afghanistan carried out its first execution since the
interim government in December 2001. Abdullah Shah, a military commander,
was executed in Kabul in on 19 April 2004. He had been convicted in
October 2002 on 20 counts of murder in special court proceedings which
fell far short of international fair trial standards. He had no defence
lawyer at his trial, the hearing was held in a closed court and the chief
judge in the initial trial was found to have accepted bribes.
Last year, I visited Kabul and in my meeting with President Karzai, I
urged him to maintain the moratorium. Earlier this year, his office had
assured us that the President would not approve any judicial executions
until the criminal justice system was reformed. After we issued a public
statement protesting against Abdullah Shah's execution, the government
publicly stated that all judicial executions would be suspended for the
time being.
In Iraq, one of the first acts of the interim government was to reinstate
the death penalty for murder, national security and drug trafficking. I
hope this does not bode ill for the future human rights record of the
country.
In Thailand, the government is using capital punishment as its principal
tool to fight what it calls the "drugs war". Human rights abuses committed
in the context of this crime control campaign, including the use of the
death penalty, are of great concern of Amnesty International and I took it
up with senior ministers of the Government during my visit to Thailand in
July this year.
The number of people on death row has reportedly tripled over the past 2
years to nearly 1000 men and women, the majority of them sentenced for
drug offences. At the end of 2003, more than 60 men and women condemned to
death had exhausted all appeals and may be in imminent danger of
execution. The government has repeatedly made public announcements that it
will speed up executions of drug offenders as a "deterrent" against drugs
production and trafficking. Ironically, both are on the rise, possibly
proving what we have known elsewhere -- that the death penalty has never
been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishment.
The "war on terror" and the revenge of callous criminal acts by terrorists
create the risk of a backlash, examples are the new law in Morocco, or the
military Commission at Guantanamo Bay.
This is not a time for complacency. Despite important gains for the past
four decades, there is still a long way to go to free the world from the
death penalty. And, as we speak among the "converted" here, the key
question is: how do we get there?
The global picture on the abolition of the death penalty is a mottled one,
showing great progress in many parts but also problems in others, and
within those, a range of different situations from total abolition to
frequent executions. To address this differentiated situation, we too must
adopt a differentiated campaigning strategy, varying according to regions
and countries.
At the regional level, Europe has become a force for world-wide abolition.
Promoting worldwide abolition of the death penalty is an official policy
of the European Union. In Europe and Central Asia, Belarus and Uzbekistan
are the only countries still carrying out executions. We must make Europe
a death penalty free zone.
Like Europe, Latin America also has a long abolitionist tradition and
should become a vigorous promoter of abolition elsewhere, particularly in
the Caribbean right on its doorstep.
In Africa, we should persuade the remaining retentionist countries to draw
from the experience of their abolitionist neighbours. The African Union
should be persuaded to take up the issue in the same way as the European
Union.
At the level of countries, if a country has abolished the death penalty
for ordinary crimes, then the task is to seek total abolition. If it is
abolitionist in practice, then the task is to abolish it in law. If a
country is still executing, the task is to stop executions and move on to
abolition in law.
For countries that have abolished the death penalty it is important that
they remain abolitionist. One way to ensure that is for them to ratify the
international treaties on abolition. Such action not only solidifies their
own position, it is also an act of international solidarity which
encourages others. I hope very much that the country where we hold this
conference today, Canada, which removed the death penalty from its books
years ago, will also soon ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the
ICCPR.
For countries that retain the death penalty, it is important to recognise
their different practices, and to target them accordingly. Of the 78
countries that retain the death penalty, some 17 countries regularly carry
out executions and they appear year after year in Amnesty International's
worldwide list of executions. Another 44 countries and territories execute
only sporadically. Twelve countries have not carried out executions for 10
years but do not have a policy suspending executions, and 5 countries are
currently observing moratoria on executions.
We should work to diminish the number of executions in all these
countries. We must campaign for the introduction of a moratorium on
executions where there is none and persuade those that have introduced
moratoria to move on to abolition in law. We can also seek to reduce
executions, for instance, by cutting down the types of crimes for which
people can be executed. One particular area for immediate action must be
the global abolition of the death penalty for juveniles, and as in so many
areas, the U.S. will be key here.
Experience has shown that the real force for change is from within a
country. This makes national abolitionist movements a critical factor.
They must be supported and encouraged to grow. As we heard from Michel
Taube this morning, the World Coalition against the Death Penalty offers
great potential for bringing together organizations operating at the
national level with those working internationally. The Coalition must be
strengthened so that it can fulfil this important task.
As an organisation with 74 national chapters, I know I speak on behalf of
Amnesty International members worldwide of our own commitment to work both
nationally and internationally to abolish the death penalty. Amnesty
experts from 21 countries working on the death penalty around the world
held a meeting yesterday -- and I know they are excited by the
opportunities and determined to confront the challenges that lie ahead in
our common struggle to abolish the death penalty.
The global abolition of the death penalty will not be an easy task -- no
one ever said it would. As recently as April 2004, 64 countries explicitly
dissociated themselves from a resolution favouring abolition in the UN
Human Rights Commission. Public opinion in many parts of the world still
feels that the death penalty is needed to deter crime or "terrorism". Some
believe that justice is served by execution, for others it is required by
religious laws. Some governments themselves are convinced along those
lines, others hide behind the excuse of lack of public support.
We must build greater public support for abolition. But we must also ask
governments to show leadership on this issue.
These are tough times for human rights and we must be determined in our
response to hold up the values in which we believe.
Human rights are for the best of us and the worst of us. Human rights are
for the guilty as much as the innocent. That is why the death penalty must
be abolished world-wide and we must use this Conference to set out clearly
the path to that goal.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=
80256DD400782B8480256F270048537F
(source: Amnesty International)
