Death Penalty News

Narges Mohammadi’s prison memoir recounts alleged torture, isolation and denial of medical care inside Iran’s Evin, Qarchak and Zanjan prisons. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has detailed years of beatings, solitary confinement and alleged medical neglect in Iranian prisons in a memoir smuggled out of jail, according to a report by The Guardian. The memoir, ‘ A Woman Never Stops Fighting ’ recounts her experiences inside Iran’s Evin, Qarchak and Zanjan prisons, where she says, authorities repeatedly denied her medical treatment despite severe health complications, including pulmonary embolism, seizures and heart problems.

Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is fighting for her life after being hospitalised under guard for the last five days with a heart condition, her supporters said on Tuesday. A support committee for Narges Mohammadi, who is imprisoned in Iran, said on Tuesday, May 5, that she was “between life and death”. Mohammadi's deteriorating health has raised the worst fears among those close to her. Now in her early 50s, Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize while in detention for her campaign in favour of women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty in Iran. She ⁠suffered a suspected heart attack in late March and was taken to a hospital in northwestern Iran on May 1 amid rapidly deteriorating ‌health, her family has said.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, a noted anti-death penalty activist and death row spiritual advisor based in Arkansas, has witnessed nine executions in various states. As part of his duties as spiritual advisor, Hood can join inmates in the execution chamber during their last moments on Earth. When the Rev. Jeff Hood walked into Oklahoma's execution chamber, he found his friend Emmanuel Littlejohn already strapped to a gurney, moments away from death. When Hood pulled out some anointing oil to bless Littlejohn one last time, the condemned man offered a brief moment of levity in the grim environment.

Over a year after the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, the plight of Iranian human rights defenders continues to be a matter of grave concern, as they face imprisonment, persecution, and harsh sentences for their unwavering dedication to advancing fundamental human rights in Iran.  This Iran Human Rights report presents profiles of more than 150 courageous individuals, including lawyers, teachers, minority rights activists, women's rights activists, journalists, workers rights activists, environmentalists, families seeking justice, civil rights activists and artists, who have been targeted for their defence of human rights. 

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all," the committee said in its citation. Mohammadi is one of Iran's leading human rights activists, who has campaigned for women's rights and the abolition of the death penalty. She is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran's Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate who described himself as “passionately opposed to the death penalty,” died in Cape Town, South Africa on December 26, 2021. He was 90 years old. Tutu, who as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town helped turn the conscience of the world against the white supremacist policies of apartheid that oppressed his homeland, later was tasked by President Nelson Mandela with chairing the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While unrelenting in his opposition to apartheid, he remained a consistent voice of non-violence. “The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement. During his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, Tutu condemned violence both by government security forces and by those fighting for the liberation of the na...

Sister Helen Prejean is a leading advocate for abolition of the death penalty. She's written 2 books on the topic, and 1 of them, " Dead Man Walking ," became an Oscar-winning film . She's been nominated 3 times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Her new memoir, "River of Fire," will be published by Random House, probably in January. You grew up in Baton Rouge. What brought you to New Orleans? I joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957, so I was 18. I've been in New Orleans ever since. Part of that was going to college at St. Mary's Dominican. Did you know much about the city when you arrived? Oh, yes. We would come on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It was a holiday, and that's when we'd go shopping in New Orleans. It was a big deal. We would "motor" to New Orleans with mama and go to D.H. Holmes and Maison Blanche to do shopping. In high school, we took a bus trip for Mardi Gras one year. ... The convent was...

China said Tuesday it was handling the cases of 5 Filipinos sentenced to death for drugs offences according to law, after Manila linked their fate to its no-show at the Nobel peace prize ceremony. Philippines President Benigno Aquino told a newspaper that staying away from Friday's ceremony in Oslo to honour peace laureate Liu Xiaobo had been "in our national interest" -- a reference to convicted Filipinos in China. "China's judiciary handled the cases of the 5 Philippine drug traffickers independently and in accordance with law," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters when asked about Manila's no-show in Norway. "Their rights have been ensured and we have been following the conventions on consular affairs and regular Chinese laws and regulations," Jiang said. "We will update the Philippine side on the case in a timely manner and provide necessary assistance and convenience for Philippine consular officials." Beiji...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Benigno Aquino III said the Philippines did not send a representative to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring a jailed Chinese dissident because of his efforts to spare Filipinos on death row in China. Aquino said in an interview published in the Philippine Sunday Inquirer that his envoy's absence at the ceremony in Norway on Friday did not mean his government is not championing democracy and human rights. "Our interest (is) to advance our citizens' needs first," he told the newspaper in his first comments since human rights activists criticized the Philippines' decision to boycott Friday's ceremony with China and 16 other countries. China was outraged at the award for democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo, demonizing him in state media and portraying the Nobel as a Western propaganda tool to undermine China. It sought to persuade and pressure other countries to not attend the ceremony, and nearly all the boycotters were clos...

Oslo, Norway (CNN) -- An imprisoned Chinese dissident was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on Friday as groups of protesters gathered outside the Norwegian Embassy and United Nations offices in Beijing. China has responded furiously since the Nobel committee announced on October 8 that Liu Xiaobo would be its peace prize winner. Officials have repeatedly called Liu a common criminal and declared the award a Western plot against China. A large number of officers also stood guard outside the west central Beijing apartment complex where Liu Xiaobo's wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest since the award was announced. Journalists were cordoned off in a small area next to the building. The police presence outside the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing had also increased early Friday. Liu, a professor of literature, is serving an 11-year sentence in a Chinese prison for what the government called "inciting subversion of state power." He was not allowed to trave...

Mohammad Mostafaei The International Day Against Execution does not belong to a specific case or person who is condemned to execution or stoning, this day belongs to all those who were executed in the past and it belongs to all those who are waiting on death row across the world. To begin with, let me rekindle the memories of my own teenage clients Behnam Zare, Delaram Darabi, Behnood Shojae and others who have unjustly and only on the basis of the establishment's vindictiveness and vengefulness been hanged. And let me thank the ECPM and the French Bar Association for helping all the people in the countries who take steps against human rights conventions and take the lives of other human beings. Victor Hugo says "You insist on the example [of the death penalty]. Why? For what it teaches. What do you want to teach with your example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach thou shalt not kill? By killing?" Those pro capital punishment and those against, each ...

Liu Xiaobo BEIJING — Liu Xiaobo, an impassioned literary critic, political essayist and democracy advocate repeatedly jailed by the Chinese government for his activism, has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Mr. Liu, 54, perhaps China’s best known dissident, is serving an 11-year term on subversion charges, in a cell 300 miles from Beijing. He is one of three people to have received the prize while incarcerated by their own governments, after the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in 1991, and the German pacifist, Carl von Ossietzky, in 1935. By awarding the prize to Mr. Liu, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has provided an unmistakable rebuke to Beijing’s authoritarian leaders at a time of growing intolerance for domestic dissent and a spreading unease internationally over the muscular diplomacy that has accompanied China’s economic rise. In a move that in retrospect appears to have ...