INDEX

From UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to abolitionist and retentionist government ministers and World Coalition members, participants to a recent discussion on the death penalty placed the issue high on the international agenda.

After a House committee passed a bill abolishing capital punishment on 11 February, State representative Renny Cushing explains the next steps as the World Coalition’s Steering Committee prepares to meet in New Hampshire in April.

Several hundred activists, experts and political leaders met in Beirut at the end of January to push the abolitionist cause with the Lebanese authorities and organise their movement at the national level.

On 21 January, India’s Supreme Court formally banned the execution of mentally ill prisoners and in doing so highlighted why this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty, which is dedicated to issues of mental health, is so important.

After weeks of debates, Tunisia has adopted a new Constitution. As expected by local abolitionists, the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) passed a text allowing capital punishment on 26 January 2014.

The execution of Edgar Tamayo in violation of an international court order spurs Mexico to pursue its efforts in favour of consular rights in the US, a diplomat says.

The Executive Committee of the Greater Caribbean for Life (GCL) network, constituted in October 2013, met in San Juan, Puerto Rico on January 11 and 12 to devise strategies to combat the death penalty in the region.

Hands Off Cain organised a conference on the abolition and moratorium of the death penalty in West Africa on January 13 and 14, in partnership with the government of Sierra Leone and with support from the World Coalition, the European Union and FIACAT.

Through engagement with members of Parliament, the publication of an unprecedented report on death row conditions and the launch of a new website, the Moroccan abolitionist movement is entering a new dimension.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual report, the number of death sentences in the United States has remained near record lows, a new State repealed capital punishment and public support for the death penalty fell to a 40-year low.