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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Amid Rising Executions, Iran Puts Three More to Death

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The Islamic Republic of Iran has carried out the executions of three more prisoners amid a rise in the use of the death penalty.

A prisoner previously sentenced to death on drug-related charges was executed in Urmia Prison on Wednesday morning.

Human rights groups identified the prisoner as Mohammad Daghestani, who was arrested on drug charges and later sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic's judiciary.

On Tuesday, the death sentences of two prisoners, Mohammad Karamizadeh and Esmail Javadi, were carried out at Ghezel Hesar Prison.

Each had been sentenced to death for separate cases of premeditated murder.

According to a report by Amnesty International, Iran has reached its highest level of death sentence executions in the last eight years, with the judiciary of the Islamic Republic executing 853 people in 2023 alone.

The report indicates that 481 executions, more than half of the total, were related to drug crimes.

This marks an 89 per cent rise in death penalties for drug-related offenses compared to 2022 when 255 people were executed.

The latest numbers also show a staggering 264 per cent increase compared to 2021, when 132 individuals faced execution on similar charges.

Source: Iran Wire, Staff, August 21, 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: Iran
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