| Debate on capital punishment rages | |||
|
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| Advocates
of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, improves the community
by making sure that the convicted criminals do not find their way out
onto the streets to commit offences again. |
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| They
also hold that this punishment, economically, is cheaper than keeping
convicted criminals in high security prisons for the rest of their
lives. |
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| Those
who oppose capital punishment hold tightly on to humanistic values.
According to them, capital punishment poses a challenge to the
political as well ethical values. |
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| They
also say that capital punishment makes human life look like cheap and
puts governments on the same low moral level as criminals who take
others' lives. |
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| Talking
to The Pioneer, human rights activist and opponent of capital
punishment Gireesh Kumar said nothing gets solved by sentencing a man
to death. |
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| According
to him, by sentencing a man to death, the authorities are committing a
more serious crime than the one the offender would have committed. |
|||
| "Antony's
crime could be brutal. But he deserves humanistic considerations. After
all, he is not an animal. He is a human being. By awarding death
penalty to Antony, the State is also committing a crime, which is more
serious than that of the crime committed by him," he said. This may
tend to glorify a culture of offence in the State, which would have a
larger impact in the minds of the people, he adds. |
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| Another
important factor to be noticed is that it is the poorer sections in
society, who are always victims of capital punishment in most of the
cases and a good example for this being that of Ripper Chacko. |
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| "The
only shortcoming of such people is that they are unable to afford a
good lawyer. If they are able to hire a good lawyer, they would get out
of death penalty," said Girish Kumar. |
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| More
than 80 countries in the world have capital punishment by law, but very
few countries are implementing it. In most countries that enforce
capital punishment, it is considered as a punishment for premeditated
murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. |
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| In
some countries with a Muslim majority, sexual crimes, including
adultery and sodomy, carry death penalty, as do religious crimes such
as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. |
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| In many retentionist countries, drug-trafficking is also an offence that invites capital punishment. |
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| In
China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also met
with death penalty. Death penalty exists in the US despite opposition
from people there. |
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"Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power.
It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality."
- Dr BR Ambedkar
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