Abolish the Death Penalty – Ghazaleh G. Pourzadi

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The time has come to abolish the death penalty worldwide. The case for abolition becomes more compelling with each passing year. Everywhere experience shows that executions brutalize those involved in the process. Nowhere has it been shown that the death penalty has any special power to reduce crime or political violence. In country after country, it is used disproportionately against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities. It is also used as a tool of political repression. It is imposed and inflicted arbitrary. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime. It is a violation of fundamental human rights.

Over the past decade, an average of at least three countries a year, have abolished the death penalty, affirming respect for human life and dignity. Yet too many governments still believe that they can solve urgent social or political problems by executing a few or even hundreds of their prisoners.
In 2007, 88 per cent of all known executions took place in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime.
In most places that practice capital punishment today, the death penalty is reserved as punishment for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy (the formal renunciation of the State religion).

Supporters of capital punishment argue that it deters crime, prevents recidivism, that it is less expensive than life imprisonment and is an appropriate form of punishment for some crimes. Opponents of capital punishment argue that it has led to the execution of wrongfully convicted, that it discriminates against minorities and the poor, that it does not deter criminals more than life imprisonment, that it encourages a “culture of violence”, that it is more expensive than life imprisonment.

The community of nations has adopted four international treaties providing for the Abolition of the death penalty. One is of worldwide scope; the other three are regional. Following are short descriptions of the four treaties:

Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, is of worldwide scope. It provides for the total abolition of the death penalty but allows states parties to retain the death penalty in time of war if they make a reservation to that effect at the time of ratifying or acceding to the Protocol.

Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights
The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death
Penalty, adopted by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in 1990, provides for the total abolition of the death penalty but allows states parties to retain the death penalty in wartime if they make a reservation to that effect at the time of ratifying or acceding to the Protocol.

Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights
Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [European Convention on Human Rights] concerning the abolition of the death penalty, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1982, provides for the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime; states parties may retain the death penalty for crimes “in time of war or of imminent threat of war”.

Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights
Protocol No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms [European Convention on Human Rights] concerning the
Abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, adopted by the Council of Europe in 2002, provides for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, including time of war or of imminent threat of war.

Internationally agreed laws and standards stipulate that the death penalty can only be used after a fair judicial process. When a state convicts prisoners without affording them a fair trial, it denies the right to due process and equality before the law.

Like killings which take place outside the law, the death penalty denies the value of human life. By violating the right to life, it removes the foundation for realization of all rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Many governments have recognized that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with respect for human rights. The UN has declared itself in favour abolition.
Two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Amnesty International’s latest information shows that:
• 90 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
• 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes;
• 30 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions,
• a total of 131 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice,
• 66 other countries and territories retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

The death penalty, as a violation of fundamental human rights, would be wrong even if it could be shown that it uniquely met a vital social need. What makes the use of the death penalty even more indefensible and the case for its abolition even more compelling is that it has never been shown to have any special power to meet any genuine social need.

Undeniably the death penalty, by permanently “incapacitating” a prisoner, prevents that person from repeating the crime. But there is no way to be sure that the prisoner would indeed have repeated the crime if allowed to live, nor is there any need to violate the prisoner’s right to life for the purpose of incapacitation: dangerous offenders can be kept safely away from the public without resorting to execution, as shown by the experience of many abolitionist countries.

When used to crush political dissent, the death penalty is abhorrent. When invoked as a way to protect society from crime, it is illusory. Wherever used, it brutalizes those involved in the process and conveys to the public a sense that killing a defenceless prisoner is somehow acceptable. It may be used to try to bolster the authority of the state – or of those who govern in its name. But any such authority it confers is spurious. The penalty is a symbol of terror and, to that extent, a confession of weakness. It is always a violation of the most fundamental human rights.

Each society and its citizens have the choice to decide about the sort of world people want and will work to achieve: a world in which the state is permitted to kill as a legal punishment or a world based on respect for human life and human rights – a world without executions.

Expert of Caspian Partnership for the Future NGO
on Islamic Republic of Iran, Ghazaleh G. Pourzadi