INDEX

Following the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on 29 April, the United Nations called on the United States to suspend executions in the face of potential international law violations. The World Coalition supports this appeal.

The increased number of prisoners executed for offences committed before they turned 18 is in clear violation of Iran’s international commitments, the World Coalition says in the statement below.

Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are the only two countries that continue to hand down the mandatory death penalty for murder in the Caribbean. Sign the petition here.

Iraq’s ambassador to Paris met representatives from the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty as the country has been accelerating the rhythm of executions.

The Anti Death Penalty Asia Network calls for the restoration of a formal moratorium after the government postponed a wave of executions under pressure from international abolitionists.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a World Coalition member, has called on the government formed following recent elections to suspend executions. A previous moratorium order has expired and many prisoners are at risk of being hanged.While the 2008 moratorium was introduced under the rule of the Pakistan People Party, whose former leader Benazir Bhutto was a well-known abolitionist, it expired shortly after Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League became Prime minister.
Pakistan had already broken the moratorium when it executed a soldier in November 2012.

The Paris Bar Association (a World Coalition member) and its Beirut counterpart have called on lawyers worldwide to increase efforts to defend those facing the death penalty and to push for its abolition.

FIDH and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty join others to urge The Gambia to stop executions and call upon the African Union to relocate the seat of the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights in another country.

The Iraqi institutions established after the US-led invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein have reinstated the death penalty and extended its scope since 2004. In this op-ed article, Iraqi Coalition Against the Death Penalty president Nassr Abood calls for alternative sentences and for a strong stance from the international community.

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.