INDEX

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.

In a letter addressed to President Obama, World Coalition member, the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty (PRCADP), has requested that the President abolish the application of the federal death penalty in Puerto Rico. The letter , signed by PRCADP’s General Coordinator Edgardo Roman-Espada, was sent to the White House before the President’s visit to the island on 14 June 2011.

The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s Report entitled “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2010” was published and discussed during the “Exchange of views on abolition of capital punishment”.

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.

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.