Outcry fails to prevent Belarus executions

Activists are demanding perssure on Belarus to ditch the death penalty.

Belarus is to go ahead with the execution of two men currently on death row, despite international pressure on the country to abandon the practice.

President Alexander Lukashenko has made tentative attempts to improve relations with Western Europe, but the death penalty remains an obstacle.

The convicted men - Oleg Grishkovtsov and Andrei Burdyko, from Grodno in western Belarus - could be executed at any time, after the country's Supreme Court turned down appeals from the pair.

Their relatives will only find out that the executions have taken place by an official letter confirming their deaths, and will not be told where the bodies are buried.

The 2 men were found guilty of killing three people during an armed robbery in a flat in Grodno last year.

They were also found guilty of taking a child hostage in the course of the robbery and setting the flat on fire, before forcing a taxi driver to help them to flee the crime scene.

Belarus is the only country in Europe which continues to execute convicted criminals, and it sparked widespread condemnation when it executed two convicted murderers in March 2010.

And as recently as 14 September another death sentence was handed out.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has long criticised the country's continued use of capital punishment.

In March, Amnesty called on President Alexander Lukashenko to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

The death penalty can only be struck off the constitution by Mr Lukashenko or the parliament in Minsk.

'Public support'

However, the government insists there is public support for the death penalty, which is usually carried out by a single gunman delivering a point-blank shot to the head.

In a referendum in 1996 more than 80% of voters backed capital punishment.

Analysts say that the authorities have since used this vote to stifle public discussion of the issue.

Opinion polls suggest that at least 2/3 of Belarusians believe that the sort of criminals who are sentenced to death cannot be rehabilitated.

Human rights activists have had little success in garnering support, and 1 online petition against the death penalty was signed by just 318 Belarusians in an entire year.

The country's population is more than 9 million.

Price for dialogue

The government has been engaged in a very gradual discussion with the Council of Europe about "possible steps towards a moratorium and removal of the death penalty" in Belarus.

The matter is also being raised at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, with delegates from Belarus defending executions.

They believe the creation of a working group in parliament and their readiness to discuss a moratorium with the Council of Europe should work in their favour.

Abolishing the death penalty is one of the mandatory conditions the EU is demanding from Belarus in order for it to start official political dialogue with the country.

However, human rights activist Valentin Stefanovich says that Europe should not hold its breath: "Recent signals from inside the government have made it clear that we should not be expecting a moratorium on capital punishment anytime soon."

The UN Human Rights Council has also been sounding the alarm for more than 10 years about how the Belarusian authorities treat the relatives of those executed.

Families are not given the opportunity to say goodbye or pick up their loved-ones' belongings. They are also not told where the executed are buried, and authorities do not release the bodies for private funerals.

Source: BBC News, September 28, 2010

Comments

Oklahoma | Richard Glossip on Life After Decades on Death Row

In an exclusive interview at home in Oklahoma City, Glossip describes his first days of freedom in a world he hasn’t experienced for nearly 30 years. For three decades, Richard Glossip lived on concrete. First at the Oklahoma County jail, after his arrest for murder in 1997, and then in the underground bunker housing death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. As with the rest of his surroundings, he eventually got used to the hard, unforgiving floors, although recently he’d developed painful swelling in his legs.

Florida | 2-time Jacksonville baby abuser is set for execution

Thirty years ago while on probation for fracturing an infant’s skull, Andrew Lukehart inflicted at least five blows to the head of another baby, then concocted a story that she was abducted before eventually leading authorities to her body in a swamp area. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, the 53-year-old from Jacksonville is set to become Florida’s eighth man on death row to be executed in 2026. He will become the 36th under Gov. Ron DeSantis after a record 19 inmates were executed by the state in 2025, including another from Duval County: Michael Bell.

Florida executes Andrew Richard Lukehart

Jacksonville man who killed his girlfriend’s 5-month-old baby in 1996 executed 30 years later A Jacksonville man who confessed to killing his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter and throwing her body in a pond 3 decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening. Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was scheduled to receive a 3-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of aggravated child abuse and felony murder in the death of Gabrielle Hanshaw. The baby’s mother told News4JAX she plans to attend the execution.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Can the state execute a man who already survived? | Opinion

A second execution would be an unimaginable nightmare for Tony Carruthers and a moral horror for the rest of us. Tony Carruthers is not supposed to be alive . On May 21, Tennessee set out to execute him. It failed. Carruthers survived. He is not the first person to survive an execution in the United States, and he won’t be the last. For Carruthers, the question is: Now what? Will the state seek to arrange a second execution?

Florida | The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars.

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog