-Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,511073,00.html Paris dispatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Kill the death penalty A conference in Strasbourg is calling for America to show moral leadership over the death penalty, writes Jon Henley Friday June 22, 2001 Timothy McVeigh and Juan Raul Garcia are, unfortunately, by no means the only ones. Around the world, a total of 1,457 prisoners were executed last year in 31 countries, and a further 3,058 were condemned to death. For the record, China heads the list with over 1,000 executions, followed by the US with 85, Iran with 75 and Saudi Arabia with 63. Amnesty International, the source of the figures, says they are conservative. It is against this sorry backdrop that the first ever World Congress against the Death Penalty, attended by a hundred or so lawyers, human rights campaigners, death sentence survivors and parliamentarians from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, is currently being held in Strasbourg. At the close of the congress this afternoon, Nicole Fontaine, president of the European parliament, and the speakers of 21 national assemblies was signing a declaration calling for the abolition of the death penalty in the 87 countries in the world that still maintain it. No one is under much illusion as to its impact. "It's unlikely to have any immediate effect," admitted Ms Fontaine. "But it could prove effective in the medium term, particularly on countries like Yugoslavia or Turkey, which are already on the road towards abolition." America, however, is a different matter altogether. "We won't make any serious global progress until we've smashed US resistance," said Patrick Baudouin, a former president of the International League of Human Rights. While 30 countries (including Canada, Poland, Ukraine and Chile) have joined the abolitionists' ranks over the past decade, bringing to 109 the number of states that have now abandoned the death penalty by law or in practice, America's refusal to reconsider its position is the single most important obstacle in the campaigners' path. "There's no doubt that the fact that the United States, the world's only superpower and the largest western democracy, continues to practise this barbarity encourages any number of other countries, but especially China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to carry on," said Mr Forni. Between them, these four countries account for nearly 90% of the world's executions. Needless to say, none of them has sent an official representative to the congress. Despite George Bush's fierce assertion on his visit to Europe last week that the death penalty was "the will of the people in the United States", the arguments against execution are of course multiple, and essentially unanswerable. It does not cut crime (no country that has abolished capital punishment has seen violent crime increase); it contravenes the most basic human right in a democracy (the right to expect the state to respect the life of its citizens); it encapsulates all the ills of the society that employs it (social, cultural and financial inequality, racial prejudice, miscarriages of justice). For Robert Badinter, the former French justice minister who pushed through the abolition of the death penalty in France 20 years ago, the congress is "a very important step, a genuine world first that will, if nothing else, send a strong and united signal". But even if he sees the case of China - under Beijing's "Strike Hard" programme, 99 criminals were recently shot dead in a single day - as currently the most preoccupying, Mr Badinter insisted that a change of American heart over the death penalty was "absolutely essential" to the cause of universal abolition. "I think it will come," he said, "and maybe sooner than we think. It'll happen state by state. The first signs are already there: the governor of Illinois, a friend of the Bush family, has just ordered a moratorium on executions after realising that a dozen innocent people had been condemned to death in his state." Mr Badinter, now a human rights lawyer, added: "America's two most influential papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, are campaigning for abolition. Even if they are isolationist, Americans are very keen to show they are the model democracy. The fact that America executes minors and the mentally handicapped is an unbearable stain on its world image. It cannot but change." Walter Schwimmer, secretary-general of the 43-member council of Europe, which organised the congress (and has obtained a ban or a moratorium on executions in all its member states, including Russia) said the abolitionists would serve their cause best by proceeding cautiously and avoiding grandiose, antagonistic or moralising statements. "But proceed we must and proceed we will," he concluded, "because the bottom line is simple: death can never be justice." Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------- Jenny Decker <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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