All about Innocence

“Extraordinary things can happen to ordinary people and still be OK »The Sunny Center is a place like no other place in the world. Perched on the top of a hill, it is surrounded by lakes and hills that multiply as far as the eye can see. The landscape is breath-taking. But the landscape is nothing compared to the founders of the Sunny Center. Sunny Jacobs, 72, and Peter Pringle, soon 80, began welcoming innocent people into their homes in 2011.

The report is a first-of-its-kind comparative study of wrongful convictions. The report illuminates the similarities in wrongful conviction in six countries: Cameroon, Indonesia, Jordan, Malawi, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

On October 26, abolitionists all around the world celebrated the release of Cheng Hsing-Tse, originally sentenced to death in 2006. This successful outcome highlights the work of numerous organizationss which assist death row survivors.

Asil Abuassba, a Palestinian intern with World Coalition member organisation The Advocates for Human Rights, attended a training session to help global activists submit reports on the death penalty situation in their countries to UN bodies.

The World Coalition has redesigned its online library to help visitors find the documents they need in its multilingual database of resources and campaigning tools on capital punishment.

World Coalition members and a man who spent 18 years on death row for murders he did not commit joined UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for a debate on capital punishment.

While Africa has been the fastest region in abolishing capital punishment in recent years, lawyers from Uganda and Nigeria say they are facing increasing from the authorities to use the death penalty.

Several organizations are condemning executions of innocent people because of wrongful convictions.

One For Ten is a series of short documentary films telling the stories of innocent people who were on death row in the United States, with support from the World Coalition and several of its members.

A new online project listing 891 exonerated wrongful convictions in the US includes 101 death sentences.

Ron Keine, an exonerated former prisoner turned activist, shares his story so that the United States may one day join the rest of the civilized world in abolishing the death penalty.

At a meeting in Brussels in July, European institutions and NGOs restated their commitment to a long-term partnership to oppose the death penalty worldwide.

Legal action by local activists and pressure from international organizations have succeeded in stopping plans by Nigeria’s authorities to execute hundreds of death row inmates.

The World Coalition held a side event to accompany the presentation of the 8th Quinquennial Report of the UN Secretary General on capital punishment in Vienna on May 19.

The American death row inmate heard the news less than one hour before he was scheduled to die. From Huntsville to Paris, activists demand that new evidence be examined.

The teenage nephews of an American death row inmate started an anti-death penalty organization that has grown into a pillar of the Texas abolitionist community.

After the US Supreme Court restored Mumia Abu Jamal’s death sentence, the campaigners working to save his life have started an international petition addressing the president of the United States.

Speaking at a symposium on the death penalty organised in Tokyo by the Swedish presidency of the European Union, a Japanese minister expressed his commitment for abolition.

An abolitionist wave of marches, cultural happenings, petition signings and educational events swept across the world for the 7th World Day on October 10.

An official report and a feature in the New Yorker have confirmed that Todd Willingham was not guilty of the arson for which he was executed. Abolitionist campaigners are now targeting his case.

ACAT-France and Amnesty International France staged their 9th “die-in” against the death penalty in the United States.

On June 2, 2009, the 200th execution authorized by governor Rick Perry took place in Texas. Protests were scheduled from Huntsville to Paris to denounce the death penalty situation in the southern US state.

Human rights organisations and governments worldwide have slammed the Iranian authorities for the illegal execution of Delara Darabi, a young woman convicted of a murder committed when she was 17.

The French presidency of the European Union organised a meeting between EU diplomats and US abolitionists in November to strengthen a discreet but long-standing partnership.

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”.

A World Coalition delegation found the door closed on June 16 when they attempted to handover to the Chinese Liaison Office in Hong Kong a petition urging for changes in the death penalty system in China.

With public meetings, football matches and media action Malian activists have been covering all bases to try to push through adoption of a law abolishing the death penalty before the end of the parliamentary session.

A study of the rulings by New Delhi’s Supreme Court for more than 50 years concluded that “the administration of the death penalty in India is manifestly flawed”.

Teng Biao is one of the rare activists who call for the immediate abolition of the death penalty from within China. In the past weeks, the police confiscated his passport and he received threats.