Tuesday, January 06, 2009   00:39 GMT    
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MIDEAST: Death Penalty in Palestinian Territories Alarms Rights Groups
By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank - New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has sent urgent letters to Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, urging them to commute the death sentences of 11 Palestinians currently awaiting execution.
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RIGHTS-MOROCCO: Abolition Activists Failing to Stir Campuses
By Abderrahim El Ouali
CASABLANCA - Anti-death penalty activists have yet to carry through their plan for a new boost of campaigning in Moroccan universities, facing a combination of outright hostility and political apathy from some students.
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MEXICO: Attempt to Revive Death Penalty Doomed
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY - A proposed constitutional amendment introduced in the Mexican Congress to reinstate the death penalty stands virtually no chance of approval. But it has generated a broad public debate that is expected to grow more heated.
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DEATH PENALTY-SIERRA LEONE: Successful Appeal Strengthens Case For Abolition
By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN - A court in Sierra Leone has overturned treason convictions for 11 men. It is the first successful appeal against a death penalty in that country, opening the possibility of an eventual end to capital punishment there.
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DEATH PENALTY: Arab Cyber Project to have New Year Launch
By Abderrahim El Ouali
CASABLANCA - The Rights and People project -- an Arabic-language anti-death penalty venture -- will start work in early 2009 with the launch of an online magazine, the first of its kind run by human rights activists in the 24-country region.
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Q&A: 'Conditions in Prisons Should be Close to Those Outside'
Zoltán Dujisin interviews PAVEL KANDRAC, Slovakia's Public Defender of Rights
BRATISLAVA - More experts should become engaged in helping long-term prisoners prepare for their eventual return to society, says Pavel Kandrac. Kandrac, Slovakia's parliamentary-elected ombudsman, says the ultimate goal is their re-socialisation.
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Q&A: 'We Have to Develop Our Modern Sharia'
Abderrahim El Ouali interviews MOSTAFA HANNAOUI, founder of the Rights and People project
CASABLANCA - A unique human rights project has been recently set up to empower more than 300 million people in the Arab world to campaign for their individual human rights, according to Mostafa Hannaoui.
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Q&A: 'The Abolitionist Cause Should Be Separate from Politics'
Abderrahim El Ouali interviews AMMAR QURABI of the Syrian National Human Rights Organisation
CASABLANCA - The abolitionist movement in Syria faces more difficulties from religious institutions and scholars than from the state, says Ammar Qurabi.
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Q&A: 'Divinely Ordained Law Makes Abolition More Difficult'
Abderrahim El Ouali interviews MARYAM NAMAZIE of Equal Rights Now
CASABLANCA - Political Islam is the main barrier to abolishing the death penalty in most countries where it is still practised, says Maryam Namazie.
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RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Enlarged Capital Crimes List Belies Promises - Activists
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI - The decision to add "cyber terrorism" to Pakistan’s long list of capital crimes has raised questions on whether the new government has the resolve to carry through its promise to commute the death sentences of 7,000 prisoners.
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Q&A: 'Religious Institutions and Islamists Oppose Abolition'
Abderrahim El Ouali interviews BRAHIM AHENSAL of the Moroccan Human Rights Association
CASABLANCA - King Mohamed VI of Morocco could easily abolish the death penalty by royal decree. But by keeping capital punishment on the statute books, the young King is yielding to official religious institutions and Islamists, says Brahim Ahensal.
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Q&A: 'Review of All Life Sentences after a Set Time'
Kuban Abdymen interviews GULNARA KALIAKBAROVA of Penal Reform International
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The guns of state firing squads are today silent in Central Asia.
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RIGHTS-HUNGARY: Activists Seek to Reverse Draconian Law
By Zoltán Dujisin
BUDAPEST - A Hungarian rights organisation is seeking to return the country to the days when all life prisoners had a right to a review of their sentences, giving hope to eight who have been sentenced to imprisonment until they die.
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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Aboriginal's Death in Custody Case - No Justice?
By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE - Although supporters have expressed satisfaction with the six year jail term handed down recently to Lex Wotton for his role in the 2004 Palm Island riot -- sparked by the death in police custody of aboriginal man Cameron Doomadgee -- they say that justice has yet to be served.
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RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Lawmakers Vote to Retain Death Penalty
By Peter Richards
KINGSTON - In the end, not even an appeal from the internationally respected South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu made a difference.
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SINGAPORE: Leading Rights Lawyer Faces Jail Term
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - Singapore’s embattled human rights lawyer and leading anti-death penalty campaigner, Ravi Madasamy, intends to defend his reputation "all the way" to the highest courts after being released on bail for allegedly causing a disturbance at a mosque.
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DEATH PENALTY-LEBANON: Public Must Wait for Full Abolition Plan
By Mona Alami
BEIRUT - The Lebanese government will use television to gain maximum attention for its plan to abolish the death penalty, giving one station the first right to question Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar about the details of an abolition bill which will be eventually presented to parliament.
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RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: When Terror Wears a Uniform
By Constanza Vieira
SOACHA, Colombia - Herminia Lizarazo did not know what to respond when her seven-year-old grandson told her "Grandma, I want to know what the army is for." The boy, whose two uncles belong to the army in Colombia, wanted to wear a military costume for Halloween.
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RIGHTS-KYRGYZSTAN: Alarm After 'Lifers' Attempt Breakout
By Kuban Abdymen
BISHKEK - The Kyrgyzstan parliament has ordered that the most dangerous of the country’s life-term prisoners should be moved from their jails and put in isolation cells dispersed around the country following an attempted prison breakout which led to four deaths.
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INDONESIA: Media Turns Bali Bombers Into Martyrs
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
JAKARTA - In a crowded neighbourhood in this sprawling city families sat glued to their television sets late into the night of Nov. 8 watching updates on the execution of three men convicted for the 2002 nightclub bombings on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people.
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Death Penalty - Stop the KillingThe death penalty is the ultimate punishment, often shrouded in secrecy. In 2007, at least 1,252 people were executed in 24 countries, according to Amnesty International. Nearly 90 percent of these recorded executions -- believed to be just a fraction of the true number -- were in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States. In 2007, three countries, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, violated international law by executing people for crimes committed when they were younger than 18, according to Amnesty. Up to 27,500 are estimated to be awaiting execution on death row around the world.

But the world is moving inexorably towards abolition. In a historic December 2007 resolution, the UN General Assembly called on all nations to abolish the death penalty. To date, 137 countries have done this either in law or practice.

Crime & Justice - Abolishing the Death Penalty - Download PDF File

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS ON THE WAY OUT
by Elisabetta Zamparutti
The 2008 World Report on the Death Penalty from Hands Off Cain confirms that there has been positive movement in the fight to end capital punishment for more than a decade, and highlights the most striking advance yet: the universal moratorium against capital punishment approved by the United Nations last December, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in Italy's Radical Party who prepared the death penalty report.
more >>

U.S. LAGS BEHIND WORLD OPINION IN LINGERING SUPPORT FOR DEATH PENALTY
by Mark Sommer
more >>

UN DEATH PENALTY RESOLUTION HAS WIDE EFFECT
by Elisabetta Zamparutti
more >>

Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Child Rights Information Network
Hands Off Cain
International Development Law Organisation
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
International Helsinki Federation on Human Rights
International Federation for Human Rights
Death Penalty Information Centre (USA)
Death Penalty Links
Penal Reform International
Human Rights: Death Penalty
The Innocence Project (USA)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)

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