Jan. 19 AUSTRIA: Death penalty opponents demonstrate in Schwarzenegger's home country Activists in California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's home country voiced their opposition to capital punishment outside the U.S. Embassy in Vienna on Wednesday after the execution of convicted killer Donald Beardslee. About a half-dozen protesters stood in the snow outside the embassy holding signs that read, "Schwarzenegger Terminates in Real Life," "Death PenaltyState Murder" and "No to the Death Penalty." The Vienna chapter of Amnesty International urged Austrians to write letters of protest to Schwarzenegger's office, saying, "The death penalty is the most inhuman of all punishments." Beardslee, convicted of killing 2 women over a drug deal almost a quarter-century ago, was put to death early Wednesday at the San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco. The execution, California's 1st in 3 years, came hours after Schwarzenegger rejected a clemency petition seeking to commute the death sentence to life without parole, and the Supreme Court rejected 2 last-minute appeals. The Austrian-born Schwarzenegger remains popular in his homeland, but there have been several protests in recent months denouncing his stance on the death penalty. The execution was the top story on state television Wednesday morning in Austria, where capital punishment is illegal. Kurt Flecker, a top official in the southern province of Styria where Schwarzenegger was born, issued a statement blasting "the moral and ethical shortcomings of the bodybuilder and actor" for refusing to pardon Beardslee. He said the governor has "a contempt for human life." Schwarzenegger was born in 1947 in the Austrian village of Thal and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984. (source: Associated Press)
