On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence.
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15th World day against the death penalty
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The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided on 26 September 2007, to declare a ''European Day against the Death Penalty,'' which is held annually on 10 October.
The Council of Europe has been a pioneer in the abolition process which has made Europe a de facto death-penalty-free zone since 1997.
The day is a European contribution to the World Day against the Death Penalty, which is held annually on the same day.
The 47-nation Council of Europe and the 28-member European Union have published a joint statement to mark the European and World Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October.
The statement underlines the 2 organisations' firm opposition to capital punishment in any circumstances.
It also calls on countries still using the death penalty to commute any existing sentences and to introduce a moratorium on capital punishment as a 1st step towards abolition.
Through the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of Europe has created a death penalty-free zone covering 47 countries and over 820 million people.
No executions have taken place in any Council of Europe member state for over 20 years.
Every year on October 10th, FIDH founding member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, reaches out to citizens, associations, and institutions who strive to universally abolish the death penalty.
This year, with the World Coalition, we wished to bring your attention to the link that exists between the application of the death penalty and poverty.
On top of being an inhuman punishment, ineffective and irreversible, the death penalty is profoundly unfair and discriminatory.
The application of the death penalty is inextricably linked to poverty.
Social and economic inequalities affect access to justice for those who are sentenced to death for several reasons: defendants may lack resources (social and economic, but also political power) to defend themselves and will in some cases be discriminated against because of their social status.
The death penalty in practice
• 104 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes
• 7 countries have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes
• 30 countries are abolitionist in practice
• 57 countries are retentionist
• 23 countries carried out executions in 2016
• In 2016, the top five executioners were China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
1. Organize a public debate and a movie screening with exonerees, victims of terrorism, murder victim’s families, experts, to raise awareness on the reality of the death penalty. See our mobilization kit for useful tips!
2. Organize an art exhibition (photo, drawings, posters) or a theatre performance.
3. Organize a demonstration, a sit-in, a ‘die-in,’ a flash mob.
4. Join the events prepared for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.
⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence.
Today is the 9th anniversary of the deaths of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, executed by firing squad in Indonesia, alongside 6 other people. We remember them, along with every person who has died at the hands of a retributive state, and the families and friends left mourning them. May they rest in peace.
According to the Iranian state-media reports, at dawn on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, a young woman named Shahnaz was hanged in Qezel-Hesar prison in Karaj. Shahnaz had been held in prison for three years. She is the fifth woman hanged in Iran in 2024.
SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah requested on Tuesday that a man who’s been on death row for almost 25 years be executed. Taberon Honie was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother in 1999. In the death warrant application, the state’s lawyers said Honie used up his appeals and there is no longer any legal reason to stop Honie’s execution.
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
Aware that only the use of terror and force keeps it in power, the Cuban regime makes it clear that if necessary, it will not hesitate to kill. HAVANA TIMES – Inflation, misery, the lack of medicine, and power outages, which were the triggers for previous demonstrations, are worsening daily in Cuba. Given the possibility that these protests may occur again, the regime has threatened the death penalty for those who participate in demonstrations considered “illegal.”
On the morning of Tuesday, April 30, 2024, four prisoners, including a woman, were executed in Birjand prison. The identity of the executed woman has not been determined. The other three prisoners were Mahmoud Gergij, Mohammad Shah Bakhsh and Mehdi Eshterak, from Sistan and Baluchistan province.
Iraq has passed a sweeping anti-LGBT law that criminalises same-sex relationships and could see gay people sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted The law, which was passed by Iraq’s parliament on Saturday, purports to “protect Iraqi society from moral depravity and the calls for homosexuality that have overtaken the world”.
A group of high profile political prisoners in Iran have denounced the death sentence handed down to dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi, calling it a sign of Iran's "inhuman nature and deep corruption." Earlier this week, an Iranian revolutionary court sentenced the outspoken artist to death for his songs supporting the nationwide protests of 2022, charges that his lawyer, Amir Raeisian, claims he had previously been acquitted of.
Authorities of the Islamic Republic executed four more prisoners over the weekend as death penalties continue to rise in the country. The Iran Human Rights Organization reported that three inmates were executed on April 27 in Tabriz Prison for drug-related offenses. The inmates were identified as Amir Moharrami, 36, Davoud Namyari, 33, and Sohrab Hokmabad.
