While it is impossible to conduct a global survey, evidence suggests that most people in a majority of countries believe that the death penalty is wrong, with this view particularly strong among Christians.
While it is impossible to conduct a global survey, evidence suggests that most people in a majority of countries believe that the death penalty is wrong, with this view particularly strong among Christians.
There is little stomach for the Old Testament concept of an eye for an eye, even in Israel where capital punishment is law, yet only two executions have been carried out since it was founded in 1948; the last in 1962.
Attempted justifications for the continuance of the death penalty are problematic in the 21st century, with cultures clashing as much as the old with the new. Intentional murder convictions grant victims’ families the right to judge the severity of sentences, undermining the power of the courts and their independence.
Meanwhile, the stated offense of trying to destabilise the state is open to interpretation and the whims of those in power. Saudi Arabia’s treatment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is an example.
There is no shortage of people who believe criminals should forfeit their lives for heinous crimes.
But sovereign states have, too often, condemned the wrong people and ignored their own laws when sanctioning the deaths of people who were mentally incapable of understanding what they had done.
Brazilian drug trafficker Rodrigo Gularte was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic tendencies. Yet he was executed by firing squad in Indonesia for drug trafficking three years ago, despite his illness and lack of comprehension.
Fr Charlie Burrows, an Irish Catholic priest who ministers to condemned prisoners, for three days tried in vain to explain to Gularte that he was soon to die. Fr Burrows described Gularte as a quiet and sensitive man who finally understood.
Why should state-sanctioned killing be a state right?
Police and judicial systems are far from infallible, as found in the United States where at least 20 people sentenced to death have been exonerated since the introduction of DNA testing.
And the steadfastness of the law is only highlighted publicly when death row inmates become politicised and cause diplomatic friction, such as with condemned foreigners like Prabu Pathmanathan.
There are 81 Nigerians on death row in Malaysia, but they are now to be spared. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whose government is abolishing the death penalty, was accused at the time of politically exploiting the 1986 hangings of British and Australian drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers.
The hanging in Singapore in 2005 of Van Nguyen, an Australian Vietnamese who was allegedly blackmailed into a narcotics ring to protect his troubled brother, was revolting. He turned state evidence amid promises this would go in his favour. It did not.
Such treatment is barbaric, particularly when meted out in narcotics cases where drug mules and other bit-players of syndicates are condemned while those in charge carry on with relative impunity from their home countries.
Great inroads have been made towards ridding the world of the death penalty and, in the meantime, curbing its use.
Malaysia, by announcing the scrapping of capital punishment, will be able to join other nations conforming to international norms in order to pressure those that don’t, even China and North Korea.
In his last moments, as executioners strapped him to a post to be shot, Gularte turned to Fr Burrows as the prospect of what was about to happen sank in.
“This is not right. I made one small mistake, and I shouldn’t have to die for it,” Gularte said.
Source: heraldmalaysia.com, Luke Hunt, November 17, 2018
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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
