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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Sweden protests to Iraq over death sentence given to Swedish citizen

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STOCKHOLM, June 13 (Reuters) - Sweden said on Thursday it had called in Iraq's charge d'affaires in Stockholm to protest against a death sentence handed down to a Swedish citizen in Iraq.

The foreign ministry said Iraqi authorities had confirmed that one Swedish citizen had been sentenced to death and that it had also received information that one or two other Swedish citizens had been handed the same sentence.

"Iraq's chargé d'affaires was urgently summoned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs today," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in a statement.

"At the meeting, Sweden's protests against death sentences issued to Swedes in Iraq, and demands that the sentences not be enforced, were conveyed."

Billstrom said Sweden opposes the death penalty "always, everywhere and regardless of the circumstances".

The foreign ministry did not give any further information.

Daily Aftonbladet reported that the men had been accused of being involved in the shooting of another Swedish citizen in Iraq in January.

Source: Reuters, Staff, June 14, 2024

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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



Location: Iraq
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