Feb. 21
PHILIPPINES:
'Scrap death penalty law'
For the last five years, no person convicted of heinous crime has been
executed because President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is against the death
penalty.
But now, the President does not want to merely grant reprieve to convicts
who are due for execution. She wants the 12-year-old death penalty law
repealed.
The President yesterday vowed to certify the long-pending bill abolishing
the death penalty the moment it is reported out by the committee on
justice in either chamber of Congress.
"I'm all in favor of repealing the death penalty when it comes out of
committee level. I will certify it," she told the Foreign Correspondents
Association of the Philippines (Focap) during a luncheon press conference
at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City.
Since the death penalty was restored for heinous crimes like rape, murder
and kidnapping-for-ransom in 1994, more than 1,500 criminals have been
meted out a death sentence. A third of these death sentences has been
upheld by the Supreme Court.
The President has been frequently criticized for reneging on her promise
to order the execution of convicted kidnappers, and drug traffickers. Her
detractors say she merely wanted to appease the citizens, specially those
in the Chinese-Filipino community, outraged over kidnapping incidents but
did not really mean to fulfill her promise to order the execution of
anybody.
Mrs. Arroyo did not deny having made that promise. But she reasoned out
that there was no need to implement the death sentence if the law
enforcers succeed in solving abduction cases and breaking up kidnapping
syndicates.
"Why did I say that I would have some people executed at that time
kidnapping was quite rampant? There were times when you have to do extreme
measures in order to drive home a message.
But really Divine Providence has been very good to me. By the time the
death penalty was to be imposed on kidnappers, the incidence of kidnapping
had gone down to zero. In other words, you can't solve the kidnapping if
it's happening all the time, you can solve the situation without resorting
to the death penalty," the President explained.
Describing herself as "fundamentally prolife," the President denied
allegation that she was always suspending or staying the execution of
condemned criminals to please the Catholic bishops but because of her
personal belief in the Catholic doctrine that abhors on taking one's life
as a punishment for crimes.
The President also denied that she voted for the death penalty bill as a
member of the Senate in 1994. However, she said she voted in favor of
lethal injection as a mode of execution because "it's the more humane
way."
She also said that while she joined the street march sometime in 1999 to
seek justice for the victim of convicted rapist Leo Echegaray, it did not
mean that she favored the convict's execution.
(source: Manila Standard Today)
(in) ENGLAND:
Tackling unjust sentences
It's 9am on a Sunday morning and Danny Glover - known to millions as the
endearingly beleaguered Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon franchise - is
holding forth on why the death penalty has such a hold on the imagination
of the American people.
'It's a policy that has always been presented as a perfect solution,' he
says. 'People believe in it because it taps directly into their fear. In
that respect, it holds public opinion hostage. But it's not perfect and
innocent people have died because of it.'
Glover is just one of the many celebrities, from Tim Robbins and Susan
Sarandon to Alanis Morissette, who have chosen to appear in The
Exonerated, which opens in London this week at the Riverside Studios
(Glover joins the cast next month). The play's starry endorsement during
its 18-month off-Broadway run helped make it into a theatrical cause
celebre.
Hollywood actors are often mocked for jumping on to the liberal bandwagon
but for Glover, the play offers a genuine - and all too rare - opportunity
for him to, as he puts it, 'share my relationship with the world'.
Glover has been petitioning against the death penalty since he was a
teenager: he was among those who lobbied George Bush as state governor of
Texas in 1999 to retry Gary Graham, sentenced to death for murder on
evidence many believed to be unsafe.
The Exonerated deals with the story of 6 people wrongly convicted and
sentenced to die by a system that has now notched up 1,000 executions
since 1976.
Using the now familiar technique of direct testimony, compiled by Jessica
Blank and Erik Jensen, it includes such travesties of justice as the case
of Kerry Max Cook, who spent 2 decades on death row - the longest period
endured by a man subsequently set free.
Sunny Jacobs is another of those 6. In 1976, she was sentenced to death
for shooting a police officer on the basis of false testimony by her
co-accused, Walter Rhodes.
During her confinement her boyfriend Jesse Tafero, convicted of the same
crime as Sunny, was executed. Sunny's sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment in 1981 and she was finally released in 1992. She has always
maintained her innocence.
'The play has given us all a voice,' says Jacobs, who now lives in
Ireland. 'Otherwise our experiences would take up 15mins on the news and
then be forgotten.'
There's a danger in thinking that The Exonerated preaches to the converted
- no one in their right mind could think that executing innocent people
was right. Yet the power of the play to change minds can be measured in
real terms.
In 2003, governor George Ryan commuted all death row sentences in Illinois
after receiving a petition organised by actors who had appeared in the
play; he also requested to see a performance.
Nonetheless, Glover isn't convinced the play coincides with a gradual
shift in thinking about the immorality of capital punishment, despite
recent high-profile executions such as that of Stanley Tookie Williams.
'It's impossible to tell from the opinion polls,' he says. 'You also have
to consider how helpless we are. Look at examples such as the Iraq war,
which millions campaigned against, and yet which still goes on. We have to
ask why we can't stop these things.'
Jacobs agrees that there is still a long way to go. 'The average American
is misinformed about the death penalty,' she says. 'But when they are
educated about the real facts, they understand. And even in places where
the death penalty is no longer used, it always pops up its ugly little
head. The play is importan to keep that negative feeling from growing.'
The Exonerated previews from tonight, opens Friday, until Jun 11,
Riverside Studios, Crisp Road W6, Tue to Sun 7.45pm, Sun mats 4pm, 25,
18.50 concs. Tel: 020 8237 1111. www.riversidestudios.co.uk Tube:
Hammersmith
(source: This is London (UK)
