Threat level : high risk

There is a high risk of a return to the death penalty in your country.

Some steps may have been taken by the Executive branch (i.e. new method of execution) or Members of Parliament (i.e. draft bill) for the death penalty to be reestablished and/or for executions to resume. Influential groups are supporting this move and civil society organizations are repressed or even shut down. The independence of the judiciary is not always respected and the state does not always comply with its international obligations.

What you can do!

  1. Make sure that you and your organization are safe and check our tool on “Helpful Hints and Advice on Online Harassment”
  2. Work with others. Create a network of local activists interested in working on the death penalty in your country. You may use safe technologies such as a Signal group or an emailing list hosted by a secure platform to coordinate your discussions. Regularize discussions around the death penalty; not merely discussing the topic on the eve of executions or legislation.
  3. Identify your targets and your allies and advocate with them. They may be Members of Parliament, the National Human Rights Institution, the UN office in your country, the European delegation in your country, embassies from abolitionist countries, …
  4. Work with existing international NGO’s and institutions to map political connections in countries at risk in order to determine who may be persuaded by local actors and who is not susceptible to political pressure or at risk. Identify existing international advocacy opportunities and submit joint alternative reports to the UN.
  5. Create and disseminate information, such as narratives that abolitionist actors and supporters can use to convince advocacy targets. It may take the shape of fact sheets, websites, blogs, physical pamphlets or flyers, billboards, commercials, YouTube videos, social media live events. Example of narratives: debunk myths about the death penalty (e.g. that it is an effective deterrent to crime), highlight conditions of those on death row… You may use the example of the Maldives’ leaflet on Fair Trial Standards in the Maldives.
  6. Your country has not ratified any international and/or regional treaties to abolish the death penalty, so if you think it is relevant, join our campaign and check if your country is not already a target country, then contact us to join forces.
21st World Day against the death penalty poster

21st World Day Against the Death Penalty – The death penalty: An irreversible torture

 Moratorium poster

Helping the World Achieve a Moratorium on Executions

In 2007, the World Coalition made one of the most important decisions in its young history: to support the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a step towards universal abolition. A moratorium is temporary suspension of executions and, more rarely, of death sentences. […]