INDEX

For the first time in nine years, the United Nations has participated in festivities marking the World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Everyone agrees that the highest international standards should apply in the fight against drug. But what about the standards used in punishing traffickers- and the inappropriate use of the death penalty against such criminals?

Iran hanged 121 people in six weeks between 20 December 2010 and 31 January 2011, many of them after unfair trails and for crimes that did not result in a person’s death.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty welcomes the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of a third resolution calling for a universal moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

A proposed United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a global suspension of executions has gained the support of two more countries pending a plenary vote next month.

A shortage in one of the component of lethal injections has led to the drug being imported from Britain in violation of European law to carry out an execution in Arizona.

The World Coalition held a side event to accompany the presentation of the 8th Quinquennial Report of the UN Secretary General on capital punishment in Vienna on May 19.

Several UN member states taking part in Iraq’s UN human rights review have asked Bagdad to restore a moratorium on the use of the death penalty and to move towards abolition.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has decided not to restore Belarus’s special guest status until the country establishes a moratorium on the death penalty.

Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak raised the issue at the UN’s Human Rights Council, triggering a debate in which World Coalition member organisations had their say.