INDEX

17 ministers and numerous experts met in Rome on May 17 to discuss crime-busting policies that reject the death penalty. Representatives for the Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso pledged their support for abolition.

One of the two main political parties in the largest US State has taken a formal stance against capital punishment – with help from local abolitionist organisations.

On 10 October 2010, the 8th World Day Against the Death Penalty is dedicated to the USA which executed 52 people and handed down 106 death sentences in 2009.

In a letter to the United Arab Emirates’ justice minister, the World Coalition denounced the growing number of death sentences handed down in the country, especially after unfair trials or against juvenile offenders.

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 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights held a regional conference on the death penalty in North and West Africa in Benin mid-April.

The World Coalition has been active in Liberia and internationally to bring the West African country back into the abolitionist community.

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

After one year of encouraging signals from Belarus, the last European country with the death penalty has brutally resumed secretive executions and the harassment of abolitionist activists.

Amnesty International has released its report on the death penalty in the world in 2009. The organisation has decided to exclude China from its calculation due to the lack of transparency on capital punishment in that country.