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| The European Parliament |
8 states still have the death penalty in their legislation for homosexuality
Deirdre Clune MEP (Ireland South) has said that 2,466 people in 55 countries are now known to have been sentenced to death in 2014.
Clune, who is a member of the EU Employment and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, has supported a motion calling for a global abolition of the death penalty.
“There were 23% more people executed in 2014 than in 2013, which includes a number of women who were stoned to death for adultery in Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran and Saudi Arabia,” MEP Clune said.
“Eight states still have the death penalty in their legislation for homosexuality (Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Qatar) with 33 more states applying the death penalty for drug related offences.”
“Iran reportedly executed 394 drug offenders in the first 6 months of 2014, compared with 367 in the whole of 2014. Whilst I do not condone criminal activity, the application of the death penalty goes against several clear and definitive human rights treaties,” she continued.
“Belarus is the only UN Member State in Europe that still uses the death penalty. I would urge the European Commission to make it clear to countries that the EU supports and trades with, that we are opposed to the use of the death penalty and that dialogue with those countries and the UN should commence to work towards ending the use of the death penalty as a means of punishment,” she concluded.
Source: thecork.ie, October 13, 2015
EU encourages the abolition of the death penalty worldwide
Every year on 10 October, the European Union joins in the observance on the occasion of the European and World Day against the Death Penalty.
The European Union holds a strong and principled position against the death penalty. The abolition of the death penalty worldwide represents one of the main objectives of the EU’s human rights policy and a personal priority for High Representative/Vice President, Federica Mogherini.
On a Joint Declaration by the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the European and World Day against the Death Penalty, 10 October 2015, Federica Mogherini said: "Today we reaffirm our strong opposition to capital punishment. The death penalty is inhuman and degrading, and allows judicial errors to become irreversible and fatal".
The European Union welcomes countries that apply a 'de facto' abolished practice, as Papua New Guinea, and encourages all States to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is a fundamental UN International instrument for the abolition of the death penalty.
Background
There is a worldwide trend towards abolition: between 1993 and 2015, the number of countries that abolished the death penalty by law for all crimes, grew considerably. As of December 2014, 140 countries - more than 2/3 of the countries of the world - were abolitionist in law or practice.
In 2014 and during the first semester of 2015, the EU issued almost 30 statements on numerous general and individual death penalty cases and carried out more than 30 demarches.
The EU is the leading institutional actor and lead donor to the efforts by civil society organizations around the world in the abolition of the death penalty. Its action in this area represents a key priority of its external rights policy.
The EU is also the first regional body to have adopted rules prohibiting the trade in goods used for capital punishment (and torture and ill-treatment), as well as the supply of technical assistance related to such goods.
In multilateral fora, the EU led an intensive lobbying campaign for the UN General Assembly resolution on a “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”. In December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution with an unprecedented number of 117 votes in favour.
Source: pngfacts.com, October 13, 2015
