INDEX

Jose Medellin, a Mexican sentenced to death in Texas, was executed on August 5 despite serious flaws in his trial. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty denounces an “irrevocable breach of international law”.

A DVD released by ADPAN features a campaigning video made from interviews with international anti-death penalty activists in 13 Asian languages.

Thai human rights activists led by the Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) organised a series of seminars with religious leaders to raise their awareness and discuss their perspectives on abolition.

On 10 October 2008, World Day Against the Death Penalty, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty calls on all citizens around the world to take action to end executions in Asia.

New Liberian legislation makes some violent crimes punishable by death, in violation of the country’s international obligations.

Pakistan’s new government has called on all death sentences in the country to be commuted to life imprisonment. Pakistani lawyer and human rights defender Kamran Arif believes a moratorium is at hand.

A recent visit to Taiwan by a joint World Coalition-ADPAN delegation left the impression that the Asian island was on course to “join a global trend towards abolition of the death penalty”, as was reported in the local media.

A recent report from a far-reaching commission established by the Californian senate on the administration of capital punishment in the state concluded that “the system is broken”.

As the World Coalition held its general meeting in Nantes at the end of June, discussions focussed on the involvement of corporations and local authorities.

Marc Bossuyt was UN Special Rapporteur for drawing up the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. He is now president of Belgium’s Constitutional Court.