The Death Penalty
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
Interesting that the U.S still chooses to stand side-by-side with China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia on the issue of murdering it's own citizens.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8593438.stm
Monday, 29 March 2010
Amnesty urges China to disclose execution figures
Rights group Amnesty International has urged China to disclose the number of prisoners it executes.
In its annual report on the use of the death penalty, Amnesty said some 714 people were known to have been executed in 18 countries in 2009.
But the group said the true global figure could be much higher, as thousands of executions were thought to have been carried out in China alone.
At least 366 people were executed in Iran, 120 in Iraq and 52 in the US.
Amnesty praised Burundi and Togo for abolishing the death penalty in 2009 and said that for the first time in modern history, no-one had been executed in Europe or the former Soviet Union over the year.
'Torture'
Beijing says it executes fewer people now than it has in the past, but has always maintained that details of its executions are a state secret.
However, Amnesty said that "evidence from previous years and a number of current sources indicates that the figure remains in the thousands".
WORLD EXECUTIONS 2009
Hangman in Iran (2007)
China: thousands suspected executed by injection and shooting
Iran: more than 366 executions, by hanging or stoning
Iraq: more than 120 executions by hanging
Saudi Arabia: at least 69 executions by beheading or crucifixion
US: 52 executions by lethal injection of electrocution
It said the death penalty could be applied to 68 offences in the country, including non-violent crimes, with executions carried out by lethal injection or firing squad.
Many people were sentenced based on confessions extracted under torture and having had limited access to legal counsel, it said.
"The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place," said Amnesty's Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone.
"If this is true, why won't they tell the world how many people the state put to death?"
Since 2007, all death sentences passed in China have been subject to a mandatory review by a higher court, a process China says has reduced the number of killings carried out.
"However, as long as statistics on the use of the death penalty in China remain a state secret, it will be impossible to verify this claim and to analyse actual trends," said Amnesty.
Of particular concern to Amnesty were cases of those executed after political unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, people sentenced to death for financial fraud and a British man, Akmal Shaikh, executed for drug smuggling despite his lawyer's claims he was mentally ill.
"The time is long overdue for China to fall into line with international law and standards on the death penalty and be open and transparent regarding its use of capital punishment," it said.
Abolitionist trend
Amnesty said that by the end of 2009, there were 17,118 people on death row around the world, with 2,001 people sentenced that year.
But while 58 countries still had a death penalty in 2009, only 18 countries were known to have carried out executions.
Graph
It also said "commutations and pardons of death sentences appear to be more frequent" in countries which still pass death sentences, including more than 4,000 in Kenya in a mass commutation in August.
The group noted a sharp rise in executions in Iran in the eight weeks after political unrest following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory in June 2009.
Iran was also criticised, along with Saudi Arabia, for carrying out executions of people convicted of crimes they committed while under the age of 18.
Saudi Arabia was reported to have carried out executions "at an alarming rate", with at least 69 people publically beheaded in 2009.
The report also highlighted an increasing abolitionist trend around the world in recent years.
Both Burundi and Togo outlawed the death penalty in 2009, becoming the 94th and 95th countries to do so.
"The world is in reach of 100 countries declaring their refusal to put people to death," said Amnesty.
The group repeated its assertion that the death penalty is cruel, an "affront to human dignity" and often used disproportionately against the poor and marginalised.
It said the secrecy surrounding state executions in many countries was "indefensible".
"If capital punishment is a legitimate act of government as these nations claim, there is no reason for its use to be hidden from the public and international scrutiny," it said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8593438.stm
Monday, 29 March 2010
Amnesty urges China to disclose execution figures
Rights group Amnesty International has urged China to disclose the number of prisoners it executes.
In its annual report on the use of the death penalty, Amnesty said some 714 people were known to have been executed in 18 countries in 2009.
But the group said the true global figure could be much higher, as thousands of executions were thought to have been carried out in China alone.
At least 366 people were executed in Iran, 120 in Iraq and 52 in the US.
Amnesty praised Burundi and Togo for abolishing the death penalty in 2009 and said that for the first time in modern history, no-one had been executed in Europe or the former Soviet Union over the year.
'Torture'
Beijing says it executes fewer people now than it has in the past, but has always maintained that details of its executions are a state secret.
However, Amnesty said that "evidence from previous years and a number of current sources indicates that the figure remains in the thousands".
WORLD EXECUTIONS 2009
Hangman in Iran (2007)
China: thousands suspected executed by injection and shooting
Iran: more than 366 executions, by hanging or stoning
Iraq: more than 120 executions by hanging
Saudi Arabia: at least 69 executions by beheading or crucifixion
US: 52 executions by lethal injection of electrocution
It said the death penalty could be applied to 68 offences in the country, including non-violent crimes, with executions carried out by lethal injection or firing squad.
Many people were sentenced based on confessions extracted under torture and having had limited access to legal counsel, it said.
"The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place," said Amnesty's Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone.
"If this is true, why won't they tell the world how many people the state put to death?"
Since 2007, all death sentences passed in China have been subject to a mandatory review by a higher court, a process China says has reduced the number of killings carried out.
"However, as long as statistics on the use of the death penalty in China remain a state secret, it will be impossible to verify this claim and to analyse actual trends," said Amnesty.
Of particular concern to Amnesty were cases of those executed after political unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, people sentenced to death for financial fraud and a British man, Akmal Shaikh, executed for drug smuggling despite his lawyer's claims he was mentally ill.
"The time is long overdue for China to fall into line with international law and standards on the death penalty and be open and transparent regarding its use of capital punishment," it said.
Abolitionist trend
Amnesty said that by the end of 2009, there were 17,118 people on death row around the world, with 2,001 people sentenced that year.
But while 58 countries still had a death penalty in 2009, only 18 countries were known to have carried out executions.
Graph
It also said "commutations and pardons of death sentences appear to be more frequent" in countries which still pass death sentences, including more than 4,000 in Kenya in a mass commutation in August.
The group noted a sharp rise in executions in Iran in the eight weeks after political unrest following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory in June 2009.
Iran was also criticised, along with Saudi Arabia, for carrying out executions of people convicted of crimes they committed while under the age of 18.
Saudi Arabia was reported to have carried out executions "at an alarming rate", with at least 69 people publically beheaded in 2009.
The report also highlighted an increasing abolitionist trend around the world in recent years.
Both Burundi and Togo outlawed the death penalty in 2009, becoming the 94th and 95th countries to do so.
"The world is in reach of 100 countries declaring their refusal to put people to death," said Amnesty.
The group repeated its assertion that the death penalty is cruel, an "affront to human dignity" and often used disproportionately against the poor and marginalised.
It said the secrecy surrounding state executions in many countries was "indefensible".
"If capital punishment is a legitimate act of government as these nations claim, there is no reason for its use to be hidden from the public and international scrutiny," it said.
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Comments
state-sanctioned murder is murder too. it's that simple. how any country can murder their own citizens and still claim to be civilized is beyond me.
most democracies in the world have abandoned the death penalty. this is just another example of where the US insists on living in the past.
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1. It doesn't work to deter crime.
2. It's applied unequally - especially along racial and economic lines.
3. It's more expensive than a life in prison trial, even before the appeals kick in.
4. It's irreversible once carried out.
5. It's barbaric and unworthy of a civilized society.
6. The odds of executing an innocent person are too great, given our imperfect justice system.
I don't know where you stand, but I'm against the death penalty for everyone.
As for despicable human beings who indiscriminately torture, murder and dismember people and then drop the body parts into barrels of acid, I've not met any recently, but I'll keep my eyes open.
http://isak.typepad.com/isak/2008/03/al ... us-re.html
"No government is innocent enough or wise enough or just enough to lay down to so absolute a power as death."
" ... the moral contradiction inherent in a policy which imitates the violence it claims to abhor and in fact premeditates it."
"To assert, in any case, that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today."
"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."
http://pewforum.org/deathpenalty/resour ... der/21.php
'Could not justice concede to the criminal the same weakness in which society finds a sort of permanent extenuating circumstance for itself? Can the jury decently say: “If I kill you by mistake, you will forgive me when you consider the weaknesses of our common nature. But I am condemning you to death without considering those weaknesses or that nature"? There is a solidarity of ill men in error and aberration. Must that solidarity operate for the tribunal and be denied the accused? No, and if justice has any meaning in this world, it means nothing but the recognition of that solidarity; it cannot, by its very essence, divorce itself from compassion. Compassion, of course, can in this instance be but awareness of a common suffering and not a frivolous indulgence paying no attention to the sufferings and rights of the victim. Compassion does not exclude punishment, but it suspends the final condemnation. Compassion loathes the definitive, irreparable measure that does an injustice to mankind as a whole because of failing to take into account the wretchedness of the common condition.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection ... Guillotine
'Camus's main point in his argument against capital punishment is its ineffectiveness. Camus points out that in countries where the death penalty has already been abandoned crime has not risen. He explains this by arguing that the world has changed so that capital punishment no longer serves as the deterrent that it may once have been. In Camus's father's day the guillotine was still used to execute criminals in public but by the time Camus wrote his essay executions took place privately in prisons. Although Camus approved of conducting the executions in private he argued that it removed the element of deterrence and rendered the death penalty as merely a means for the state to dispose of those whom it saw as irremediable.
Camus also argued that the threat of death is insufficient to prevent people from committing crimes as death is the common fate shared by all, regardless of guilt. He also believed that because most murders are not premeditated no deterrent can be effective and in the case of premeditated murder the deterrent would be insufficient to stop those who have already decided to act.
Without serving a purpose Camus argued that capital punishment is reduced to an act of revenge that only breeds further violence, fueled only by sadism and perpetuated by tradition. He likened this act of state revenge to the concept of an eye for an eye and stated that justice should be based on law and principles and not instinct and emotions.
Although Camus opposed the use of capital punishment today, he gives examples in the essay of how it may have been logical and appropriate in pious civilizations. In such civilizations Camus states that the death penalty was usually administered by the Church in order to deprive the convicted of the divine gift of life. However, by doing so, the convicted would then face judgement and have the chance of atonement at the hands of God. In an unbelieving world, Camus argues, the convicted is given no chance of atonement. The process takes place completely separate from the convict and simply dismisses him as beyond salvation or remedy.
Camus also stated that in an unbelieving world there is no absolute authority capable of delivering judgement as no man possesses absolute innocence himself. Because of this Camus suggested that the maximum penalty should be set at life labor due to the possibility of judicial error, a life of labor in Camus's opinion being harsher than death but at least carrying the possibility of being reversed. The convicted would then also always have the option of choosing death via suicide.
Camus also argued that capital punishment was inappropriate because by effecting revenge for grievances it simultaneously hurts the family and loved ones of the convict in the same manner as those being avenged were hurt by the initial crime.'
google snowtown murders and see what you come up with. you can google in china cant you???
take a good look
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So, someone tortured, and murdered some people, therefore you are pro-death penalty. Good logic.
Care to explain why you're pro-death penalty?
i dont need camus to tell me capital punishment is an act of revenge. or that its ineffective at deterring crime.
take a good look
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Good for you.
Now how about explaining why you support state-sanctioned murder?
its not my logic thats flawed here steve.
care to explain how you came to the conclusion that im pro capital punishment.
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that was your assumption steve.
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I came to the conclusion based on your first post, which presumes that some individuals do deserve the death penalty due to the nature of the crime committed:
as i said steve.. that was your assumption. you didnt ask for clarification, you just jumped in.
take a good look
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O.k. So then clarify away.
:roll:
im against the death penalty. happy?
do you play poker steve??
take a good look
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I agree with all of those and on top of that I would say that life in prison (like a supermax prison) with little to no contact with other people, and no chance of ever being released is a worse punishment then lethal injection or hanging.
What he said...
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
Me too.
There is not one good reason for it and I don't think it's a good thing that people get satisfaction in revenge killings.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
sorry, CF, but I'd have to say it was a pretty fair assumption based on your post. Good to know we were incorrect!
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
no it wasnt a fair assumption. and sincerely i dont care that you were all shown to be as narrow minded as you were. all i did was ask a question, the assumption was steves and apparently yours as it turns out. it never occurred to you that i was playing devils advocate. and it because of that that you will continue to underestimate any debater that doesnt somehow fit your preconcieved paradigm. steve was reactive and that was his mistake.
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now there's a double edge sward; "don't kill the killer's" but "kill the killer's executioner's ?"
Godfather.
and they've made sure it can never be reintroduced. ever. a month or so ago they passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill 2009. in simple terms, it means that no state in Australia can ever reinstate the death penalty for any crime.
howso?>? who exactly is advocating murder here and against whom??
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sorry Cate I didn't mean to insinuate that you were advocating murder at all, I was just thinking a few thing's when I read your post,for one if somebody where to take my family from me in that way I would want an eye for an eye and what do we do with the Hitler's and Jeffery Domers of the world ?
I don't under normal circumstances believe taking a life is my call or place but honestly don't know how I would react if someone were to take a loved one from me.
Godfather.
You apparently. Seems you're the only one who doesn't think so. Must just be down to everyone else on this message board being narrow minded and presumptuous, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks
In all honesty, I did not take her comment as pro-death penalty at all. It could be taken that way, or it could be taken as an attempt to explore the complexities of the topic. For instance, I have noticed that you seem quite anti-death penalty but that you also think that violence by Palestinians against Israelis might be justified in some cases (or, at least, that such violence is excusable). I could be really reactive and call you a hypocrite, or I could ask you to clarify.