July 13
GLOBAL:
Moving Towards a Worldwide Moratorium on the Death Penalty
It was a good day at the United Nations. On July 3, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon called on member states to abolish the death penalty. And he called for
a universal moratorium on the death penalty by 2015.
"The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to
inflict on another, even when backed by legal process," he said. "Where the
death penalty persists, conditions for those awaiting execution are often
horrifying, leading to aggravated suffering."
Mr. Ban gave the introductory remarks at a panel called "Moving away from the
death penalty -- Lessons from national experiences" at U.N. Headquarters in New
York. The event, a gathering of diplomats, legal practitioners and civil
society, focused on those U.N. member states that have made positive steps
towards abolition, and the human rights implications of the death penalty in
those states that execute. Also present were Assistant Secretary-General Navi
Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Christof Heyns,
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
Speaking at the forum was Federico Mayor, president of the International
Commission Against the Death Penalty, an initiative of the Spanish government
that is supported by 15 countries. Mayor noted that one of the first steps
taken by Spain after the Franco regime was the abolition of the death penalty.
A highlight of the forum was Witness to innocence member Kirk Bloodsworth, who
spent eight years in prison, including two on Maryland's death row, for a
murder that someone else committed. He was convicted of the murder and rape of
a little girl. In 1993, Bloodsworth was the first death row prisoner to be
exonerated through DNA testing. And he was released just months after his
mother died.
Bloodsworth shared with an international audience the inherent problem of
executing innocent people, of his experiences living in the hell that is death
row, and the pain of being released from prison just a few months after his
mother died.
Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project noted that only 5-10 % of serious
felonies have biological evidence for the purposes of DNA testing and proving
one's innocence. Innocent people are sentenced to death for a number of
reasons, including police and prosecutorial misconduct, incompetent lawyering,
racism in the jury selection process, eyewitness misidentification, and others.
Reasonable people can differ about the death penalty, Scheck said, but no one
can differ about the risk of executing innocent people. He also suggested that
the U.S. Supreme Court would abolish the death penalty if the states
demonstrate a trend towards abolition. The high court would conclude that the
death penalty could not stand when limited to a small number of states in one
region of the country.
In the past 5 years, 5 states -- New Mexico, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and
Connecticut -- have abolished the death penalty, for a total of 17 states that
do not execute. And in November, California voters will have the opportunity to
repeal the death penalty in the nation's largest state, thereby eliminating a
quarter of America's death row.
Meanwhile, in 2007, the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution
for a worldwide moratorium. The U.S. voted against it. Over 150 nations have
done away with the death penalty or do not practice it. Moreover, in 2011 only
21 nations executed prisoners.
On the day of the U.N. event I had an interesting conversation with two men,
diplomats from a Muslim nation. I expressed my unequivocal opposition to the
death penalty, and they explained to me why they believed the death penalty was
fairly applied in their country -- the concept of blood money.
With blood money, the family of the murder victim can demand a payment from the
accused criminal. If the accused is able to pay the amount demanded by the
family, that person is spared. Otherwise, he or she is executed. And the family
may decide not to accept blood money altogether, and the execution will
proceed.
Whether they realized it or not, the two men articulated good reasons for
ending the death penalty. If a person may be spared, and another executed for
the same crime, then one can argue that no one should have to die.
The U.S. maintains its own arbitrary form of justice, where many murders are
potentially death-penalty eligible, but the ultimate decision is made by petty
local officials -- district attorneys on the county level, and U.S. attorneys
in the federal system. Those who are prosecuted and condemned are typically
poor, disproportionately of color, and almost exclusively in cases involving
white victims.
Some studies show that universally, executions provide no deterrent effect.
Capital punishment represents pure vengeance and retribution operating as
public policy. It leaves no room for rehabilitation. Moreover, we cannot bring
an innocent man or woman back from the grave.
Surely the day will come when the international community declares a moratorium
on executions. The death penalty is the ultimate human rights violation. As
long as humankind upholds the sentence of death, it tears down its own
humanity.
(source: David A. Love is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a
national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners
and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish
the death penalty----Huffington Post)
IRAN----executions
3 prisoners were hanged in Qazvin (west of Tehran) today
3 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Qazvin early Thursday morning July 12,
reported the official web site of the Iranian judiciary in Qazvin province
(west of Tehran).
According to the report the prisoners were identified as "A. Kh." (60) and "G.
Kh." (32) convicted of keeping and carrying 4940 grams of heroin, and "Gh. h."
(49) convicted of keeping and carrying 4900 grams of opium and 900 grams of an
opium product called "sookhteh".
6 people have been reported to be executed in Iran today. 2 prisoners were
hanged in Western Iranian town of Yasoojand Iran Human Rights reported that one
woman, Safira Ghafoori" was hanged in the prison of Shiraz.
Earlier this week 3 other prisonerswere hanged in the prison of Qazvin
convicted of drug trafficking.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
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