World Days Against the Death Penalty – from 2003 to 2007
World Day
The very first World Day against the Death Penalty took place on October 10, 2003. For this first edition, no less than 184 initiatives were registered in 68 countries on 5 continents.
A first petition was shared, with the objective of calling on the authorities of all retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty. More than 7000 signatures were collected.
“Believing that the death penalty is a blatant violation of the fundamental right to life. Facing the cruelty and inhumanity of this punishment, irrevocable and irreparable. Concerned by the risk of executing the innocent. Conscious that the death penalty has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments, that it is an instrument of revenge and not of prevention. Aware that the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious groups. Concerned that it is imposed and carried out arbitrarily. Convinced that the death penalty does not provide justice but denies it.
I appeal to you to ensure that executions cease immediately, and to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.”
The second edition of the World Day Against the Death Penalty was held on October 10, 2004.
Take a look at our poster and the portraits of abolitionists!
After the 2003 and 2004 editions, the 2005 edition of World Day will be placed under two signs: an original poster will show that universal abolition of the death penalty is under way.
Every year, new countries stop executing prisoners condemned to death and abolish capital punishment. World Day should contribute to this universal awareness. This year, Africa will concentrate its abolitionist efforts: a petition addressed to heads of African countries that have not had executions for more than 10 years, to encourage them to abolish the death penalty permanently; lobbying approaches with African institutions; support of African national coalitions. But World Day is also hundreds of initiatives, in the most countries possible! Debates, concerts, demonstrations, press releases, and exhibitions, though their diversity, also give a universal dimension to World Day. Meeting of all abolitionists October 10, 2005.
Africa is on its way to universal abolition of the death penalty. Of the 53 countries on the continent, 11 have permanently abolished the death penalty, and 20 other countries have not executed anyone for more than 10 years. Thus a majority of African countries have abandoned using this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We call upon you to make every effort to extend abolition of the death penalty to the whole continent, by supporting an immediate end to the few executions still practiced and the commutation of all death sentences, by securing the abolition of the death penalty under national legislation, by ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and by furthering and supporting initiatives in this direction by the African Union and the United Nations. Following the example of values espoused by Nelson Mandela, of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone which exclude capital punishment for perpetrators of the most serious crimes and remembering that several African countries have never applied the death penalty, we believe that the moment has come for all of Africa to incorporate the right to life in national penal codes by abolishing the death penalty. We call upon you to respond to this appeal delivered on the occasion of the World Day against the death penalty, October 10 2005.
World Day 2006 – The Death Penalty: A Failure of Justice
The death penalty is not an abstract issue. The decision to apply it means that living men and women must be singled out and put to death. It is the realities of its use around the world i.e. the use of the death penalty against child offenders, the discrimination inherent in who is selected for execution, the ever present risk of the execution of the innocence, or of those suffering from mental illness and the use of unfair trials in the administration of capital punishment that add to the unacceptable face of state killing. It is not just the theories about the death penalty that underline the urgent need to abolish it.
The death penalty does not provide unique protection or benefit to society but it is a unique punishment-cruel in the extreme and irrevocable. When such a punishment is applied by systems which must be subject to human error and prejudice the result is that justice will not be served but perverted.
The World Day 2006 will focus this year on the theme “The Death Penalty, a Failure of Justice”. It will focus on the aspects of child offenders, discrimination, innocence, mental illness and unfair trials in several countries around the world to illustrate the failure of justice in the application of capital punishment.
Child Offenders
International human rights treaties prohibit anyone under 18 years old at the time of the crime being sentenced to death or executed. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the American Convention on Human Rights all have provisions to this effect. More than 110 countries whose laws still provide for the death penalty for at least some offences have laws specifically excluding the execution of child offenders or may be presumed to exclude such executions by being parties to one or another of the above treaties. A small number of countries, however, continue to execute child offenders. Eight countries since 1990 are known to have executed 47 prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan USA and Yemen have now raised the minimum age to 18 in law. The USA and Iran have each executed more child offenders than the other six countries combined and Iran has now matched the USA’s total since 1990 of 19 child executions. Eight child offenders were executed in Iran in 2005, the only country to carry out such executions last year. A 17-year old boy was executed in May 2006. Pakistan executed a child offender on the 13 of June 2006. Evidence for his age was not considered by the Court.
Discrimination
The death penalty tends to be inflicted mostly on the vulnerable members of the society-the poor, the mentally ill, and members of racial, religious or ethnic minorities including foreign nationals. Throughout the world it is applied disproportionately to the disadvantaged, and death sentences are imposed on people at the lower end of the social scale who would not have faced the death penalty if had come from a more favoured sector of society.
Migrants and other foreign nationals around the world suffer from marginalization, poverty, xenophobia and discrimination, factors which can impact on the death penalty processes.
Rarely offered legal representation, often not understanding the proceedings against them, and sometimes with neither they nor their families even informed or otherwise aware that they have been sentenced to death, impoverished migrant workers have little chance of beating a death sentence in either country.
All of these factors alone, but most frequently in combination, can mean that a person suffers from discrimination as they pass through the death penalty process.
Innocence
The fallibility which leads to the discrimination or arbitrary imposition of the death penalty also makes inevitable the execution of some prisoners who have been wrongly convicted. A poorly prepared defence, missing evidence, or even a decision of the investigating authorities to pin the guilt falsely on the accused can all result in wrongful convictions. Such convictions are difficult to reverse, as appellate courts will often not consider new evidence, confining themselves only to points of law.
Prisoners have been executed during the past decades despite strong doubts over their guilt. Others have been freed after re-examination of their cases showed they had been wrongly convicted. It is impossible to determine how many innocent have been put to death. Judicial reviews or investigations into possible error rarely occur once a prisoner has died. What is certain is that abolition is the only way to ensure that such mistakes do not occur.
Since 1973, 123 prisoners have been released in the USA after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. There were six such cases in 2004, two in 2005 and one so far in 2006. Some prisoners had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt. The state of Florida has the highest number of exonerations: 22. The then Governor of the US state of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000. His decision followed the exoneration of the 13th death row prisoner found to have been wrongfully convicted in the state since the USA reinstated the death penalty in 1977. During the same period, 12 other Illinois prisoners had been executed. In January 2003 Governor Ryan pardoned four death row prisoners and commuted all 167 other death sentences in Illinois.
Mental Illness
It is generally accepted that people who are not of sound mind should not be held criminally responsible for their acts and, by extension, that such offenders should not be sentenced to death under the normal workings of a criminal justice system. A related principle is that a prisoner under sentenced of death who is of unsound mind should not be executed, on the grounds that such a prisoner is incapable of understanding the nature of punishment.
These principles are enunciated in the following:
In resolution 2005/59, adopted on 20 April 2005, the UN Commission on Human Rights urged all states that still maintain the death penalty “not to impose the death penalty on a person suffering from any mental or intellectual disabilities or to execute any such person”. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has stated that “international law prohibits the capital punishment of mentally retarded or insane persons” and that governments that continue to enforce capital punishment legislation “with respect to [minors] and the mentally ill are particularly called upon to bring their domestic legislation into conformity with international legal standards. States should consider the adoption of special laws to protect the mentally retarded, incorporating existing international standards.”
Several factors suggest that a substantial number of mentally incapacitated people may be sentenced to death or executed: the lack of agreement on the criteria and diagnosis of insanity, and the extent to which “diminished responsibility” should apply to lesser forms of mental illness or abnormalities such as very low intelligence; and the scarcity of facilities for diagnosing mental illness in many parts of the world.
Unfair Trials
Defendants on trial for their lives must obviously be afforded scrupulously fair trials. When accepted standards for a fair trial are ignored or set aside the death penalty becomes open to political abuse and the risk of executing the innocent is increased.
Many prisoners during the past decades have been executed in cases where procedural safeguards were deficient or absent. Cases continue to be heard in special courts, often in secret, without adequate representation for the defendant and before judges who are not always competent or independent. Proceedings have been speeded up, leaving insufficient time to prepare an adequate defence. Access to counsel has been limited; sometimes there is no legal representation at all. In some countries executions have been carried out within hours of sentencing, leaving no time for appeals or petitions for clemency.
Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) stipulates
standards for a fair trial. These include the right of anyone facing a criminal charge to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal; the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty; the right to be informed promptly of the nature and cause of the crimes with which the defendant is charged; the right to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defence; the right to communicate with counsel of the defendant’s choosing; the right to free legal assistance for defendants unable to pay for it; the right to examine witnesses for the prosecution and to present witnesses for the defence; the right of everyone convicted of a crime to have the conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal.
The norms for fair trail have been incorporated explicitly into international human rights standards on the death penalty, including the ICCPR. In 1984 the Economic and Social Council adopted its set of safeguards on the death penalty, incorporating the ICCPR’s fair trial provisions.
2007 – World Day against the death penalty: the world decides!
On October 10th, 2007, the World Day against the Death Penalty focussed on the proposed UN General Assembly resolution for a universal moratorium on executions. The proposal would save lives and give the population of retentionist states an opportunity to see for themselves that a pause in death sentences does not lead to higher crime rates.
A resolution by the UN highest political body would be an important international milestone in the campaign to abolish the death penalty worldwide and would carry considerable moral weight. This initiative has already gathered the support of 5 millions people worldwide. You can support the momentum to end capital punishment and ask your country to support this resolution.
