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Indonesia-based researcher Dave McRae finds that a core group of abolitionists are battling a rise in the number of executions, death sentences and death row inmates in the country.

The role of lawyers in the fight against the death penalty has been discussed from different angles throughout the 5th World Congress, but the testimony of Chinese lawyers caught most people’s attention.

On 24-27 July, 2011, World Coalition members Penal Reform International (PRI), Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) and the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya section (ICJ), jointly hosted a regional roundtable on “Death Penalty in East Africa: Challenges, Strategies and Comparative Jurisprudence”, with the Judicial Studies Institute (JSI) in Nairobi, Kenya.

On the occasion of the 30th session of the Arab League Summit, which took place in Tunis from 26 to 31 March 2019 and brought together 21 Arab delegations, a parallel counter-summit, organized by civil society, was held to address the issue of human rights in the Arab world.

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.

From January until August 2019, Iraq executed more than 100 individuals accused of being affiliated with Daesh, according to Kurdish media network Rudaw.

The 9th annual report by Iran Human Rights (IHR)and ECPM (Ensemble contre la peine de mort) on the death penalty in Iran shows that in 2016 at least 530 people were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although this number is significantly lower than the annual execution numbers from the past five years, Iran remained the country with the highest number of executions per capita.

As the Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice is about to begin in Kyoto, Japan, the undersigned organizations urge the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its subsidiary bodies, including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); and all UN member states, including the Congress host country Japan, to make […]

A group of Algerian parliamentarians has filed a bill aimed at abolishing capital punishment. The World Coalition supports their campaign to have the proposed legislation passed.

The annual report on the death penalty in 2014 shows that the Iranian authorities have executed more than 1193 people since the election of President Rouhani in June 2013. This is an average of more than two executions every day.

Countries which continue to use the death penalty are being left increasingly isolated following a decade of progress towards abolition, Amnesty International has said in its new report Death Sentences and Executions in 2010.

Caroline Muchuma, contributor to the round table on the vital role played by lawyers in defending those sentenced to death, describing her role as a lawyer and campaigner in Uganda.

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.

On the 3rd January of this year, a Federal judge ordered Pennsylvania’s prison administration to immediately provide Mumia Abu-Jamal with medication to treat his hepatitis C infection, justifying his decision in these terms: “budgetary constraints cannot outweigh the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee of adequate medical care.”

Harm Reduction International is currently seeking to recruit Human Rights Advocacy Officer. Working as a member of the Campaigns and Advocacy Team.

In an open letter, the World Coalition and its members, including KONTRAS and Amnesty International, condemn the Indonesian government’s politicizing of the death penalty to show its commitment to eradicating drug-related crimes. Recent resumptions of executions show one thing, they are carried out for political reasons only: in Pakistan to show that it is tough on terrorism, Jordan that it tough on crime and Indonesia that it is tough on drugs. Instead, those states should abolish the death penalty to show their commitment to upholding human rights. The next World Day against the Death Penalty will be dedicated to the issue of capital drug crimes.

The World Coalition’s Indonesian member organization KontraS has raised the international consequences of Lindsay Sandiford’s high-profile capital case in an opinion article published by the Jakarta Globe newspaper, calling on the country to abolish the death penalty.

This survey, conducted by the GAMAAN Institute between the 3rd and the 11th of September 2020, includes responses from about twenty thousand people living inside Iran.

A hard-line group of Asian countries are defying the global trend against the death penalty and putting to death thousands of people after unfair trials every year, the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) said today in a new report.

On November 30, monuments in nearly 800 cities across the globe will light up to celebrate “Cities for Life – Cities Against the Death Penalty”.

For the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty dedicated to the reflection on the relationship between the use of the death penalty and torture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment started in 2022, the World Coalition hosted an online discussion with United Nations experts Morris Tidball Binz (UN Special Rapporteur on […]

The National Assembly of Madagascar adopted a bill that abolishes the death penalty on 10 December, World Human Rights Day.

Abolitionists are given a unique opportunity to voice their position as Californian authorities seek comments from the public on the review of the lethal injection process.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty express its solidarity with the families and relatives of people who are sentenced to death in Iran and with the civil society organizations supporting them.

PGA is recruiting a Programme Officer for its Hague office.

With few executions but one of the biggest death rows in the world, South Asia is at a crossroad. Recent publications explore mental health on death row and social and economic background of people sentenced to death in Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

I joined Bronwyn Dudley of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and Choukri Latif of the Coalition tunissiene contre la peine de mort (a Tunisian anti-death penalty NGO), to address the committee regarding Tunisia’s failure to implement the rights of children whose parents have been sentenced to death or were executed.

The Death Penalty Project recruits a Legal Officer.

The Death Penalty Project is recruiting a Project Officer.

By welcoming the Olympics in 2008, China committed itself to improving its human rights situation. Anxious to remind Chinese authorities of their commitments, nine French associations, five of which are members of the World Coalition, created the China 2008 Olympic Games Collective.

The group, which brings together more than 30 member organisations from four countries, established itself as a formal body and launched its website on World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Abolitionists have lashed out at Taiwan’s government for the surprise execution of four death row inmates in contradiction to its public commitment to work towards the abolition of capital punishment.

The Annual Conference of the US National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty gathered more than 400 abolitionists from around the country around the theme: Training for the long run.”

The participants to the World Congress Against the Death Penalty have handed over their final declaration to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay.

You can devote your life to crime reduction in retentionist countries and affirm your opposition to the death penalty. James Abbott is a member of this growing category.

A Japanese abolitionist organisation has criticised both the Chinese and the Japanese authorities after the series of executions.

As the legal action taken by local activists to block the use of the death penalty failed, abolitionists across Asia have been calling for an end to the death penalty in their region.

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

On June 12 and 13, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty convened in San Francisco, marking the first international abolition meeting on US soil.

The death penalty issue is back on the parliamentary agenda in the Democratic Republic of Congo thanks to a legislative sequence welcomed by local abolitionists.

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network rounds up reports from the main events organised across the Asia-Pacific region for World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10.

International abolitionists gathered on the Caribbean territory to promote their message and to show solidarity with the local authorities against capital punishment.

The death row facility of California at San Quentin finds itself at the center of a fierce debate over the future of a hugely expensive and increasingly unpopular death penalty system.

Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, keeps up the fight for two protestors condemned to death despite attempts at intimidation.

International abolitionists gathered in Morocco have discussed the recent wind of change in the region and the resulting hope for the abolition of the death penalty.

Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2018 is an opportunity to question the effectiveness of civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights, in the context of an increasingly globalized world that ostracizes, excludes, sentences to death and continues to execute.

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.

Togo’s National Assembly passed a bill abolishing the death penalty on June 23, 2009. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, who was visiting the country, attended the parliamentary session to witness the event.

The largest global abolitionist event will take place in Geneva next February. Participants are invited to register as soon as possible.

On 27 March, a US federal appeals court overturned Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, but not his conviction for murder. His lead counsel Robert R. Bryan gives his reaction to the ruling and the next steps in America’s most high-profile capital case.

As we mark the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty dedicated to women facing capital punishment, who have been sentenced to death, who have been executed or who have been pardoned or found not guilty, the members of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and allies of women sentenced to death take this […]

The 13th annual report on the death penalty by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty), shows that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Islamic Republic continued carrying out executions as in the previous years, and remains the only country to have executed juvenile offenders in 2020.

The United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice was held in Kyoto, Japan from 7 to 12 March 2021.

As of today, no country in North Africa and the Middle-East has yet abolished the death penalty. However, there are positive signs that the region is now ready to debate the issue – as can be seen from the profusion of discussions and exchanges that took place during the 3 rd World Congress against the Death Penalty.

After the Supreme Court held a hearing much awaited by the abolitionist community on January 7th, we all need to reassess our strategy for abolition in America, writes Sandrine Ageorges.

Translation of an article on the death penalty in China for the Beijing Olympics 2022, initially published by Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty in October 2021 for World Day.

On 12 April 2022, Rescue Alternatives Liberia (RAL) orchestrated a one-day forum on abolition in Liberia with the support of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The outcomes of this event were very promising, and time will tell if abolition in Liberia is near.

The African human rights watchdog has asked Libya not to execute 20 Nigerians on death row in the North African country after a Nigerian NGO highlighted their plight.

Between 12-14 May, representatives from Arab civil society organisations gathered in Alexandria, Egypt at the invitation of the Swedish Institute to discuss the implementation of the UN moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the Arab world.

Troy Davis’s execution was stayed on October 23, four days before he was scheduled to die, as activists took action on his behalf all over the world.

Gathered in Rabat on World Day Against the Death Penalty, Moroccan and international politicians, religious leaders and campaigners held advanced discussions on this subject. The country has not carried out a single execution in the last fifteen years.

On 25 November 2022, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, through the testimony of representatives of abolitionist member and partner organizations, wishes to raise awareness of the links between the death penalty and violence against women and gender minorities and call out the unjust and […]

Jamaican lawmakers voted to keep capital punishment and the government seems determined to use it. Caribbean abolitionists are battling similar moves across the region.

On 22 October 2023, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (World Coalition) organized a closed-door side event on a gender-based and intersectional approach to abolition as part of the 86th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

On 24 April 2018, ‘The People’s Jury Law’ established a new judicial framework to deal with serious criminal cases, including death penalty cases. As of its enactment, death penalty cases in China are now jury cases.

Leaders Organization, a Palestinian member of the World Coalition, is opposing a decision by the Hamas-run cabinet due to leave office in the Gaza Strip to carry out existing death sentences.

Conferences, round tables, talks, tours, meetings with politicians, debates, press conferences, sit-ins, cultural evenings, marches and speeches are among the many events that will take place in Africa for this 9th World Day Against the Death Penalty.

TAEDP Press Release, April 2, 2020The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty made this decision after the Ministry of Justice, in total disregard for the rule of law, arbitrarily and illegally executed a death row inmate on April 1, 2020.

FIACAT and ACAT Niger, in collaboration with the Nigerien Coalition against the Death Penalty, organised a seminar to raise awareness of the abolition of the death penalty in Niamey (Niger) on 10 and 11 March 2015.

San Juan, Puerto Rico – On September 27, 2012, a jury declined the United States Government petition to impose capital punishment in a murder trial on the Federal District Court. The Puerto Rico Bar Association and the Puerto Rico Coalition Against the Death Penalty were among the organizations who led a series of vigils, press releases, radio and television appearances, along many other events to raise the voice of abolitionism and justice.

Ahead of the 13th World Day Against the Death Penalty, Iran Human Rights is raising awareness about the implementation of the death penalty in Iran for drug-related offenses. Reports from the IHR website indicate that Iranian authorities have carried out more executions in 2015 than any other year in the past 25 years.

On 17, 20 and 27 November, the Australian Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs is conducting public hearings on Australia’s advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. The World Coalition and its members uses this opportunity to make their voices heard.

On May 23rd, 2016, the closing ceremony of the project “My pencil for abolition” took place at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This project was organized by the team of “Educating and Raising Awareness on Abolition” in the association Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM): it consisted in involving a few middle and high school’s classes, from Lorraine, Belfort and the Parisian region, in the elaboration of articles and cartoons in order to create a magazine committed to the abolition of the death penalty, known as the Abolition Mag.

An Iranian Court has sentenced the prominent human rights defender Narges Mohammadi to 16 years in prison. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her peaceful anti-death penalty activities with the Campaign “LEGAM” (Step by step for abolition of the death penalty). Iran Human Rights (IHR) calls for immediate international reactions. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR, said: ” Despite President Rouhani’s promises of respecting civil rights, Iranian authorities’ tolerance for peaceful civil activities is record low”.

Many African organizations and institutions raised their voices on the occasion of the 14th World Day against the Death Penalty, whose last edition, celebrated on October 10, was dedicated to the use of death penalty for terrorism-related crimes.

For the first time in Cameroon, the Cameroonian organization Droits et Paix, in partnership with the French association Ensemble contre la peine de mort, held a conference and training on the death penalty in Yaounde.

24 January 2017 was the Day of the Endangered Lawyer. This international initiative was dedicated to the harassment undergone by Chinese lawyers.

Two World Coalition members, Avocats Sans Frontières France and the Paris Bar Association, held a conference on the death penalty in Nigeria in Paris on the 27th of November.

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network held its third AGM in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 20 July, followed by a national conference on the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia and Asia-Pacific.

Concerned by the population’s view on the death penalty, the Human Rights Defenders and Abolitionist Advocates in Democratic Republic of the Congo Network [Réseau des associations de défense des droits de l’homme et militants abolitionnistes de la peine de mort en République Démocratique du Congo (RADHOMA)] organized several training courses for journalists in the past few months.

As a prominent leader in the campaign against death penalty in the South East Asia region for the last decade, Philippines’ reputation is endangered with President Duterte’s determination to reintroduce death penalty in the country. The country’s legislators are now on its second attempt to pass the bills.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in partnership with FIACAT, and their local members ACAT Cameroon and Droits et Paix (Rights and Peace), organized a continental training course in July on advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty in sub-Saharan Africa in Douala, Cameroon. This training brought together abolitionists and experts from 23 African countries.

In October 2017, Pakistan has agreed to initiate efforts to narrow down the scope of the death penalty. This first step is the result of a strong mobilization from Pakistani and international organizations, in particular during World Day.

On the occasion of the meeting of its Steering Committee on Friday 28 June and Saturday 29 June 2019, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has invited the director of Responsible Business Initiative Against the Death Penalty, Ms. Celia Ouellette, to present the involvement of companies against the capital punishment alongside with traditional activists.

Since the fall of the Morsi regime in 2013, the use of the death penalty has increased considerably in Egypt with a death sentence rate estimated at 2443 people between 2013 and 2018 according to Reprieve.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty held its Steering Committee meeting on 11/04/2018 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, following the Regional Congress held on 09-10 April 2018.

So is named The Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2017 released by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC).This report was published on April 25th, 2018 and it enlights for the fifteenth time the major human rights violations in Tanzania. This report, while it deals with human rights violation in Tanzania concerning civil and politial rights, freedom of violence, freedom of expression, also presents the death penalty as an issue in the coutnry and called the President for its abolition.

The International Studies Programme Overseas Relations Assembly and the Institute for Human Rights Research and Promotion (INIPRODEH) organised a forum: The Death Penalty and Poverty on the 89th anniversary of abolition of the death penalty in Puerto Rico. Eminent figures from the abolitionist movement and academia reviewed and analysed research into this issue.

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, a coalition hosted by Amnesty International in London since 2006, has become an independent organisation registered in Malaysia and held its first AGM in Taipei, Taiwan on 4-5 December.

April 10, 2024 Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 83 Iranian and international organisations and groups have called for joint action to stop drug-related executions, urging UNODC to make “any cooperation with the Islamic Republic contingent on a complete halt on drug-related executions”. They have announced the start of a mass international campaign in this regard.

Debates on the abolition of the death penalty at the World Human Rights Forum have highlighted the situation in the host country among the major fronts in the abolitionist struggle.

As Kazakhstan’s authorities prepare to introduce a new penal code, World Coalition members are warning against attempts to broaden the offences punishable by death.

World Coalition member Reprieve and the Mexican government share their experience of helping those facing a capital case overseas.

Although most executions continue to take place in Asia, their number is going down – and abolitionists are coming up with new ideas to bring about abolition.

The authorities of Taiwan have executed six prisoners, days after President Ma met World Coalition representatives and promised to “reduce the use” of the death penalty.

A report published by the Death Penalty Project and the Center for Prisoners’ Rights shows that Japanese law and practice on capital punishment violate international treaties, and questions the high level of public support for the death penalty reported by the authorities.

February was a month of intense strategising for members of the regional coalition against the death penalty as well as region’s ACATs, as two meetings convened to discuss the best options to spur on Africa’s march towards abolition.

To celebrate the 11th World Day Against the Death Penalty dedicated to the Greater Caribbean, a regional conference is organised by local civil society in Trinidad and Tobago on October, 1st.