{"id":64902,"date":"2015-10-12T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=64902"},"modified":"2015-10-12T06:06:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T05:06:01","slug":"10-october-the-death-penalty-and-human-dignity-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/10\/10-october-the-death-penalty-and-human-dignity-day\/","title":{"rendered":"10 October: The Death Penalty and Human Dignity Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ren\u00e9<\/a>

Ren\u00e9 Wadlow<\/p><\/div>\n

10 October is the International Day against the Death Penalty. Since the end of World War II, there has been a gradual abolition of the death penalty due to the rather obvious recognition that putting a person to death is not justice. Moreover, on practical grounds, the death penalty has little impact on the rate of crime in a country. A number of States have a death penalty for those involved in the drug trade. To the extent that the drug trade can be estimated statistically, the death penalty has no measurable impact on the trade \u2212 a trade usually linked to economic or geopolitical factors.<\/p>\n

10 October can also be a day to oppose all organized killings by State agents. In addition to State-sponsored official executions, usually carried out publicly or at least with official observers, a good number of countries have State-sponsored \u201cdeath squads\u201d \u2212 persons affiliated to the police or to intelligence agencies who kill \u201cin the dark of the night\u201d \u2212 unofficially.\u00a0\u00a0 These deaths avoid a trial that might attract attention or even a \u201cnot guilty\u201d decision. A shot in the back of the head is faster. The number of \u201ctargeted killings\u201d has grown. In many cases, the bodies of those killed are destroyed and so death is supposed but not proved, as has been the case of students protesting in Mexico. US assassinations with drones have also been highlighted both in the United Nations human rights bodies and domestically. However, the drone \u201cstrikes\u201d continue, and there is very little legislative opposition.<\/p>\n

A good deal of recent concern has been expressed on the death sentence in Saudi Arabia pronounced against Ali al\u2212Nimr found guilty \u201cof going out to a number of marches, demonstrations, and gatherings against the state and repeating some chants against the state\u201d when he was 15 years old. He is to die by crucifixion. There is perhaps some chance of a change of penalty due to more historically minded Saudis. The most widely known person crucified is Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 As the Roman count records have been lost, we have only the account written by his friends who stressed that he was innocent of the crimes for which he was condemned. His crucifixion has taken on cosmic dimensions. \u201cAre you washed in the blood of the Lamb?\u201d The Saudis try to avoid some of the Jesus parallel by beheading the person before putting the rest of the body on the cross, but the image of the crucified as innocent is wide spread.<\/p>\n

10 October is an occasion for us to stress the importance of human dignity. Our efforts against executions need to be addressed both to governments and to those state-like non-governmental armed groups such as ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The abolition of executions and the corresponding valuation of human life are necessary steps in developing a just world society.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens and <\/em>editor of Transnational Perspectives. He is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 October is the International Day against the Death Penalty. Since the end of World War II, there has been a gradual abolition of the death penalty due to the rather obvious recognition that putting a person to death is not justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}