Today is World Day Against the Death Penalty and it’s important to underline some numbers:
- 170 States around the world have either abolished the death penalty and put a moratorium on its use;
- Executions in 2016 were down 37 per cent compared in 2015;
- Four countries are accounted for 87 per cent of all recorded executions;
Amnesty International indicates on its website that every day, people are executed by the state as punishment for a variety of crimes – sometimes for acts that should not be criminalized. In some countries it can be for who you sleep with, in others it is reserved for acts of terror and murder.
More importantly, some countries execute people who were under 18 years old when the crime was committed, others use the death penalty against people who suffer mental problems.
In 2011 we joined the organization for a rally in Paris, to support Troy Davis, an American man executed at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison for the murder in 1989 of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.
Nearly one million people signed petitions urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency. The Board denied clemency and, on September 21, it refused to reconsider its decision. After a last minute appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied, the sentence was carried out through lethal injection on September 21, 2011 (Source: Wikipedia/Troy Davis).
Nous étions à vos côtés, Place de la Concorde http://t.co/mDUnSEHd Triste souvenir… @amnestyfrance Il y a un an, #TroyDavis était exécuté…
— MagkaSama Project (@MagkaSama) September 21, 2012
Secretary-General António Guterres addressed an event on the occasion of the World Day Against the Death Penalty. Here is the first sentences of the Secretary-General’s remarks at Panel on “Transparency and the death penalty”:
This is my first public statement as Secretary-General on the death penalty.
I want to make a plea to all States that continue this barbaric practice:
Please stop the executions.
The death penalty has no place in the 21st century.
I am proud to say that my country, Portugal, abolished capital punishment 150 years ago – one of the first countries to do so. As a matter of fact, I was told in school that we were the first country, but I don’t want to create any incident with any other country that claims … but this is indeed something I am very proud of.
The reasons were those that we call on today:
The death penalty does little to serve victims or deter crime.
And even with meticulous respect for fair trials, there will always be a risk of miscarriage of justice.
This is an unacceptably high price.
The world is now moving in the right direction.
…
If the world is indeed moving in the right direction, a lot remains to be done. Countries with the most confirmed executions in 2016 are:
1. China (1,000s)
4. Iraq (88+)
2. Iran (567+)
5. Pakistan (87+)
3. Saudi Arabia (154+)
6. Egypt (44+)
If you are French speaking, you can connect to the Facebook Page of FranceDiplomatie for an online discussion on death penalty:
https://twitter.com/francediplo/status/917756887612973057
