Europeans step up pressure for global halt to death penalty

European countries on Wednesday stepped up pressure for a global halt to the death penalty, as opponents of capital punishment hailed the growing number of countries scrapping or suspending executions.

The United Nations and participants in the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva said about 140 countries had now abolished death sentences or stopped carrying them out under a moratorium.

"More than 2/3 of the United Nations member states abolished the death penalty, by law or in practice," Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain, which holds the presidency of the European Union, told the congress.

2 decades ago the list included just about 50 countries.

"The balance has tipped and the speed has been extraordinary, we have seen a grand global change," said Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Gry Larsen.

But concern was focused on the countries that account for about 93 % of executions between them, according to Amnesty International -- China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States -- as well as North Korea.

Zapatero said Spain would set up an international commission made up of eminent people later this year to press for a global moratorium on the death penalty by 2015, "as a preliminary step to total abolition."

Italy said it would table a new resolution against the death penalty in the UN General Assembly later this year.

"Abolition is gaining ground, but not fast enough," said Italian secretary of state Enzo Scotti.

"The time has come to abolish the death penalty around the world," he added, as representatives of several EU states vowed to press the issue throughout their international contacts.

In 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on countries that still have the death penalty to establish a moratorium.

Source: European Business, Feb. 24, 2010