UN | Opposition to the death penalty continues to grow

The number of states voting for UN resolutions on halting executions worldwide continues to grow, signalling that consensus is building towards ending the death penalty once and for all, Amnesty International said today.

The plenary session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) today adopted a resolution on a moratorium on executions, with a view to fully abolishing the death penalty, after 123 states voted in favour. In 2007, the 1st time a resolution on a moratorium for executions was adopted by UNGA, only 104 states voted in favour.

“Countries which still practice the death penalty must treat this as a wake-up call - state sponsored executions have no place in the modern world, or in any society committed to upholding human rights,” said Rajat Khosla, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research, Policy and Advocacy.

“This resolution brings us one step closer to consigning the death penalty, the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, to the history books. We call on states that retain the death penalty to immediately establish a moratorium on executions, as a first step towards abolishing its use completely.”

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution.

Rising support

This is the 8th time UNGA has adopted a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the death penalty, since 2007. The number of states voting in favour of these resolutions has risen from 104 in 2007 to 121 in 2018 and 123 in 2020.

UNGA resolutions carry considerable moral and political weight. The continued consideration of resolutions on this issue has ensured that abolishing the death penalty remains a human rights priority for the international community.

The latest resolution was proposed by Mexico and Switzerland on behalf of an Inter-Regional Task Force of member states and co-sponsored by 77 states.

“State sponsored executions have no place in the modern world ” -- Rajat Khosla, Senior Director of Research, Policy and Advocacy.

A total of 123 UN member states voted in favour of the resolution today, including Djibouti, Jordan, Lebanon and South Korea, which supported the resolution for the first time. Congo (Republic of), Guinea, Nauru and the Philippines, which voted against the 2018 resolution, also supported the call today, while Yemen and Zimbabwe switched from opposition to abstention.

A minority of countries (38) voted against the proposal and 24 abstained at the vote. Some states that voted for or abstained in 2018 today voted against the resolution, including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Libya, Pakistan, Tonga and Uganda. Niger switched from voting in favour in 2018 to abstention in 2020.

Amnesty International’s analysis shows that use of the death penalty is declining worldwide. In 2019 the number of confirmed executions was the lowest recorded in at least 10 years, and a minority of countries – 20 – carried out executions. In 2019 executions were down 5% compared to 2018 - the fourth consecutive year-on-year reduction.

However, some countries are bucking the trend. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan and Yemen significantly increased executions in 2019 compared to 2018; Bahrain and Bangladesh resumed executions after a 1-year hiatus; and the legislature in the Philippines proposed bills to reintroduce the death penalty. The US federal government began its first pursuit of executions after 17 years, putting 10 men to death in 2020.

“States that continue to sentence people to death are bucking international trends, and today’s vote shows that the death penalty’s days are numbered,” said Rajat Khosla.

“Today we have come one step closer towards global abolition. It’s time for all states to end this horrific practice for good.”

Source: Amnesty International, Staff, December 16, 2020

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Hanging, confinement and the sentencing debate India won’t have

Ask anybody what a “death sentence” in India actually means, and the honest answer is that it can mean three quite different things. It can mean the noose—hanging by the neck until death; it can mean permanent confinement in jail—a term the courts now call imprisonment for the remainder of one’s natural life, and, far more often than either of the first two, it can simply mean delay in delivery of justice—a death sentence that is neither carried out nor commuted, waiting for completion of investigation, trial before the sessions court, hearing of a confirmation proceeding in a high court, appeal against conviction in the Supreme Court, or hearing of a mercy petition nobody has decided for years, sometimes for decades, until age or illness does what the state never got around to doing itself.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog