Summary
The Justice and Peace Committee of
Association of Major Religious Superiors of Men and Women
(AMRSMW) in Taiwan and the Comunita'di Sant'Egidio in
Italy are now inviting you, a member of the international
community, to join a signature campaign for a worldwide
moratorium on the death penalty.
As of April 2000, the campaign has collected 2,200,000
signatures from more than 125 countries since it was
launched in March 1999. The organiser intends to use
every important occasion in this year to present the
campaign and signatures collected. In March 2000, the
signatures were presented to the President of the
European Commission in Bruxelles. Each signature
represents a conscience that has been won over to the
value of life and right. The campaign continues and your
support to achieve 10 million signatures worldwide in the
year 2000 is encouraged.
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Background
50 years after the adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the trend towards
worldwide abolition of the death penalty is unmistakable.
When the Declaration was adopted in 1948, eight countries
had abolished the death penalty for all crimes; today, as
of March 16, 2000, a total of 108 countries have
abolished the death penalty in law or practice while 87
countries retain and use the death penalty according to
Amnesty International.
The Death Penalty is a violation of fundamental human
rights - the right to life and the right not to be
subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. Both
of these rights are recognized in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, other international (#) and
regional human rights instruments (*), national
constitutions and laws. The cruelty of the death penalty
is manifest not only in the execution but in the time
spent under sentence of death, during which the prisoner
is constantly contemplating his or her own death at the
hands of the state. This cruelty cannot be justified, no
matter how cruel the crime of which the prisoner has been
convicted.
(#) The Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty, adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1989.
(*) Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human
Rights adopted by the Council of Europe in 1982 and
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.
The United Nations recognized that there is no data that
can demonstrate that its use is an effective deterrence
against even the most hideous crimes. Within the United
Nations, the Commission on Human Rights has called on
states that still maintain the punishment " to
establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to
completely abolishing the death penalty" (resolution
1998/8 of 3 April 1998).
According to Amnesty International's (AI) latest update
in February and March, the following are figures and
facts about death sentences and executions known to AI:
* More than three countries a year on average have
abolished the death penalty in law in the past decade or,
having abolished it for ordinary crimes, have gone on to
abolish it for all crimes.
* In 1998
: at least 2,258 prisoners are known to have been
executed in 37 countries : 4,845 sentenced to death in 78
countries
: 86% of all known executions took place in the Peoples'
Republic of China (PRC), the Democratic Republic of
Congo, the USA and Iran
* Death sentences are known to have been imposed in 1998,
in Bangladesh, the PRC, India, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan, Philippines,
Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and
Vietnam
* Executions are known to have been carried out in 1998,
in the PRC, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand
and Vietnam
Other References / Materials:
Copies of the following information are available from
Hotline Asia or at the Amnesty International website -
Against the Death Penalty at http://www.web.amnesty.org/rmp/dplibrary.nsf/current?openview.
1. Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty
(March 16, 2000)
2. Abolitionist and retentionist countries (March 16,
2000)
3. Ratification of International treaties to abolish the
death penalty (February 10, 2000)
4. Death Penalty News (February 17, 2000) is a quarterly
news bulletin giving developments on the death penalty
and moves towards worldwide abolition.
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