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Stop the Death Penalty: The World Decides

8 October 2007, 02:01PM

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10 October is World Day against the Death Penalty and we are calling on the world's governments to support the United Nations resolution on a global moratorium on executions.

There is a global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. 133 UN member states, from all regions in the world, have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Only 25 countries carried out executions in 2006, 91 percent of them in just six countries: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the USA.

The majority of the world's executions are carried out in the Asia region with at least 3,861 people sentenced to death in 55 countries in 2006. Executions worldwide fell by more than 25 percent last year, with a drop from at least 2,148 in 2005 to at least 1,591 in 25 countries in 2006.

The World Day Against the Death Penalty is organised by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) an alliance of over 64 organisations, including Amnesty International, bar associations, trade unions and local and regional authorities.

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A consistent campaign

We have been consistent in our view that no matter what the crime - execution is not the answer. The Australian Government seriously undermines its opposition to the death penalty by being selective in its calls for clemency.

In recent years we have campaigned to have death sentences commuted in diverse cases including:

  • Australian Van Tuong Nguyen who was convicted of drug trafficking. The Singapore Government ignored pleas to grant clemency, executing the 25-year-old on 2 December 2005. Singapore resisted appeals from tens of thousands of people around the world, the Australian Government, the European Union, two Popes and Van's mother.
  • Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who was sentenced to death after being convicted in connection with the killing of 148 people from al-Dujail village in the early 1980s. Hussein was executed on 30 December 2006.
  • Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs was convicted, in 1976, with her boyfriend Joseph Tafero of murdering two police officers in Florida. She was imprisoned for 17 years, spending five years in isolation on death row, before being exonerated and released in the early 1990s. Joseph Tafero had earlier died in a botched execution in the electric chair.

Last week we released a report on the ethical and legal issues surrounding lethal injection, as part of our ongoing campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. Nowhere has it been shown that the death penalty has any special power to reduce crime or political violence. In the majority of countries it is used disproportionately against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities.

Background

The World Day is organised by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) a coalition of over 64 organizations, including Amnesty International, bar associations, trade unions and local and regional authorities.

As part of World Day Against the Death Penalty Amnesty International is supporting the WCADP's global petition for a moratorium on the death penalty, based on the 2000 UN petition launched by Community Saint Egidio in collaboration with Amnesty International.

Further information

The Death Penalty

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