INDEX

The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty has just published Staving off the Executioner, a book describing the Taiwanese abolitionist movement’s strategies, challenges and successes.

In a vibrant speech before the parliament on January 14, President Elbegdorj Tsakhia of Mongolia developed all the arguments put forward by the abolitionist community.

Bitter criticism has been targeting China since the execution of British national Akmal Shaikh in the Chinese province of Xinjiang on December 29 after he was found guilty of transporting drugs.

As legal efforts and economic woes weighed in against the death penalty, fewer Americans were sent to death row in 2009 than any other year since the restoration of capital punishment in the US in 1976.

Information obtained by the World Coalition suggests that the Iraqi authorities have been planning the mass execution of nearly 1,000 people. In a column offered to international newspapers, the World Coalition denounces that barbaric plan.

Spanish President José Luis Zapatero attended the international abolitionist colloquium during which the Academic Network against the Death Penalty was launched.

Days before the major Christian festival of Christmas, the International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture reaffirmed its Gospel-inspired opposition to the death penalty.

For 20 years, the United Nations Protocol to abolish the death penalty has been the only universal treaty of worldwide scope to prohibit executions and secure universal abolition of the death penalty for all crimes.

As part of the campaign in favour of the treaty on the abolition of the death penalty, Chile and Spain encouraged the Dominican Republic and the Ivory Coast to ratify the text.

Tsou Tzung Han is a Taiwanese teacher who actively took part in educational activities organised around World Day Against the Death Penalty. He writes about his experience with his students.