Death Penalty News

French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday he will lead a global campaign to end state-sponsored executions. PARIS (Reuters) - France will launch a campaign for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty as part of its upcoming presidency of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday. A conference will be held in Paris gathering civil society groups from countries where the death penalty is in use or suspended, Macron said in a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of France’s abolition of the punishment. France, which will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2022, will also work with other member states towards a United Nations resolution requiring countries to report each year the number of death penalty sentences given and executions carried out, he said. Macron was speaking alongside Robert Badinter, the justice minister of late President Francois Mitterrand who steered the abolition of the death penalty through the Fre...

Former French Justice Minister Robert Badinter, who was instrumental in France's banning of the death penalty, has made it his life's mission to see capital punishment abolished globally. 40 years after giving a speech that lead to the end of the death penalty in France, former Justice minister Robert Badinter continues to fight for the abolition of capital punishment around the world. "I am certain that the movement towards abolition will continue. Sooner or later it will win,” said Badinter Wednesday at a seminar organized by the French National Assembly to mark the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty. Badinter, 93, who served as Justice Minister under Socialist president Francois Mitterrand, fought to end capital punishment at a time when most of the French public supported the practice. On 17 September 1981, Badinter gave a historic, two-hour speech to members of parliament, in which he argued that only totalitarian regimes had the death penalty. “In...

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, France's president from 1974 to 1981, has died at the age of 94. He died of complications from coronavirus, surrounded by his family at his estate in central France. A centre-right, pro-Europe politician, Giscard d'Estaing also liberalised laws on divorce, abortion and contraception during his seven years in power. In later life, Giscard d'Estaing liked to portray himself as the grand old man of French politics. He was seen by many as arrogant and aloof; his presidential popularity was short-lived and he was eventually squeezed out of office by a strengthening of opposition from both the left and the right. Although he voiced his opposition to the death penalty, he refused to commute three of the death sentences passed during his term, and the last use of the guillotine in France took place in 1977. Giscard d'Estaing lost the 1981 presidential election to Francois Mitterrand, who shortly after his election commuted all standing death senten...

Christian Ranucci, condenado en 1976 por el asesinato de la niña María Dolores Rambla, fue uno de los últimos ejecutados en Francia. El caso sigue provocando debate ➤ Click here to Google translate this article into your own language Las últimas palabras de Christian Ranucci se escucharon con claridad. “Rehabilítenme”, dijo. Después, el verdugo apretó el botón y la guillotina, fría e implacable, hizo su trabajo. La cabeza rebotó dos veces en el suelo de la prisión de Marsella. Eran las 4 horas y 13 minutos de la mañana del 28 de julio de 1976. Christian Ranucci, un muchacho de 22 años condenado por el asesinato de una niña de ocho, fue el antepenúltimo ejecutado en Francia antes de la abolición de la pena capital. El caso, que dejó una marca imborrable en los implicados, sigue obsesionando al país. Algunas incógnitas no se han despejado. Marsella es el puerto del Mediterráneo, la ciudad donde se mezclan italianos, españoles, argelinos y autóctonos, la gran caldera ...

Forty-five lawyers, including some of the most prestigious names of the French bar, protested this week against what they call “state cynicism” in allowing French jihadists to be tried and sentenced to death in Baghdad. Between May 26th and June 3rd the Iraqi government tried 11 French jihadists for belonging to Islamic State, also known as Isis. All were sentenced to death by hanging. Since François Mitterrand abolished capital punishment in 1981, France has campaigned for an end to the practice worldwide. As the lawyers point out, article 66-1 of the French constitution forbids the death penalty and allows “no exception, not even in matters of terrorism”. The European Convention on Human Rights also forbids capital punishment in all circumstances. “It would be an immense dishonour to our country to make these death sentences possible,” the signatories write. The jihadists were captured by Kurdish forces in Syria and transferred to Baghdad. Paris originally plan...

Japan does not plan to review its death penalty anytime soon, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said Friday, despite her orders this month to execute all 13 AUM Shinrikyo cult members on death row sparking international criticism. "I think capital punishment is unavoidable for those who committed extremely grave and atrocious crimes, and the country's death penalty will not be re-examined immediately," Kamikawa told the press. All 13 former members of the doomsday cult who had been sitting on death row were executed on 2 occasions this month on Kamikawa's orders, prompting anti-death penalty campaigners to protest the massive enforcement of capital punishment in a short period of time. The number of executions carried out under Kamikawa has totaled 16, the highest number ordered by a single justice minister since Japan lifted its 40-month moratorium on capital punishment in 1993. ➤  FIND related content here AUM founder Shoko Asahara and 12 of his f...

In July 2013, then-US president Barack Obama sat down with his Vietnamese counterpart, Truong Tan Sang, to talk about Thomas Jefferson. It was Jefferson, Sang said, who had inspired the words of Ho Chi Minh's Proclamation of Independence, which carried as its opener a passage of America's Declaration of Independence. Just 2 weeks after this high-minded discussion on autonomy and liberty, Vietnam executed a young man named Nguyen Anh Tuan. It was thought to have been one of the first executions in Vietnam since it changed to death by lethal injection years earlier. But because Vietnam was banned from purchasing "authorized" lethal drugs, Tuan was administered with a home-made concoction that reportedly took 2 hours to kill him. Between the month of Tuan's death, August 2011, and June 2016, Vietnam executed 439 people, according to one estimate by its Ministry of Public Security, which normally doesn't publish such lists. In early 2013, one co...

On September 10, 1977, 40 years ago this week, France conducted its last execution.  Four years later capital punishment was abolished, thus ending the reign of the guillotine. The man who was executed was Tunisian immigrant, Hamida Djandoubi . He was found guilty of torturing and killing a woman in Marseilles, France. He reportedly lit her on fire, then strangled her and left her body in the countryside. Djandoubi was believed to have been a depressed man who had lost part of his leg in an accident. The case generated a great deal of attention throughout France. But despite Djandoubi's confession, the jury determined that there were no extenuating circumstances and he would go to the guillotine. Over the centuries, there were many versions of execution, but the most infamous was the French guillotine. The first person to have his head chopped off was highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier in 1792. The execution was considered to be a success and ...