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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Amnesty calls on China to give true executions number

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In a new report being published today, Amnesty International calls on China to say publicly how many people it executes each year.

The call comes in the group’s annual report on the use of the death penalty worldwide.

More people are put to death in China than in the rest of world altogether, and estimates based on the publicly available statistics “grossly under-represent” the actual numbers, the report says.

The true figure was likely to be “in the thousands,” the London-based human rights group said in the report, which also highlighted executions in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US.

“The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many people the state put to death?” said Claudio Cordone, Amnesty’s interim secretary-general.

“The death penalty is cruel and degrading, and an affront to human dignity ... No-one who is sentenced to death in China receives a fair trial in accordance with international human rights standards,” he said.

The report said that at least 714 people were executed in 18 countries last year, while at least 2,001 people were sentenced to death in 56 states.

Besides China, the countries that executed the most people last year were Iran (at least 338); Iraq (at least 120); Saudi Arabia (at least 69); and the US (52).

“The past year saw capital punishment applied extensively to send political messages, to silence opponents or to promote political agendas in China, Iran and Sudan,” Amnesty said.

It said Iran executed 112 people in the eight weeks between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June and his inauguration in August.

Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty for all crimes, taking to 95 the number of countries to have done this by the end of last year. Nine more countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes.

Some 35 countries retain the death penalty but have not executed anyone in the past 10 years.

Source: Taipei Times, March 29, 2010
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