Crime & Justice, Europe, Headlines, Human Rights

DEATH PENALTY: Persuasion Needed for Abolition in Europe Too

Petar Hadji-Ristic

BERLIN, Oct 26 2006 (IPS) - Some Europeans still need persuading about arguments for abolishing the death penalty – even though the continent is now virtually a “death penalty-free zone”, says the Council of Europe’s Secretary General Terry Davis.

“It is not enough to abolish the death penalty in law. We need to convince people about the reasons. That aspect has been neglected in the past,” he said.

In a wide-ranging interview with IPS, the native Briton spoke of his wish to encourage member Russia to formally abolish the death penalty and to continue educating the broader public on why capital punishment is wrong so that countries, notably Poland, do not reverse their stance.

The Council of Europe – and also the European Union – now insist on a death penalty ban before allowing in any new members. Only one current member, Russia, has yet to formally abolish capital punishment. Europe’s most populous country has had a moratorium on capital punishment since 1990. It joined the Council of Europe in 1996.

Russia is still expected to come into line and translate its moratorium into law.

“We always have a very clear line: you promised to do it, keep your promise. We have waited ten years,” Davis said.

The principle of the ban remains an uncompromising condition of membership to the Council of Europe, Davis added, and the doors to the group will stay firmly shut on the republic of Belarus, now the only country in Europe still holding on to the death penalty.

“They have applied to join,” said Davis. “We have frozen their application because of this and their standard of human rights generally. It is not high enough.”

Moreover, any country in Europe which slips back and reintroduces the death penalty would be thrown out of the council, Davis warned. The secretary general was referring to Poland.

In July, Polish President Lech Kaczynski expressed his support for capital punishment and called for a debate on its restoration in Europe. The League of Polish Families, a junior partner in the government, then announced it would collect half a million signatures demanding the death penalty for paedophile murderers.

Past public opinion polls in Poland have put support for the death penalty as high as 70 percent. But Davis played down the possibility of Poland ever reversing its abolition.

“I do not think they will do anything about it,” Davis said. “If they did they would leave the Council of Europe. Every country which has joined the Council of Europe over the last 15 years has promised to abolish the death penalty.”

Still, he added, the council has the power to expel members who do not comply. Greece came close to being ousted when a military junta came to power in the 1960s. The country withdrew its membership swiftly and voluntarily to escape the “indignity” of being thrown out, Davis said.

“They jumped before they were pushed,” he said.

While Davis appeared tough on member Poland, he took a milder position with the United States and Japan. Both countries actively execute citizens, yet both states enjoy observer status in the Council of Europe.

“It is not a requirement of observer status, though most of our observers have (abolished the death penalty). It is important to distinguish that the death penalty does not apply in some parts of the United States. In both those countries there are very strong campaigns to abolish the death penalty, especially Japan,” Davis said.

The United States executed 60 people last year. Around 3,400 prisoners are under sentence of death in that country, according to Amnesty International.

On the other hand, Davis was outspoken in his condemnation of China. The secretary general said he was horrified by long-standing allegations that the middle kingdom has made a lucrative trade by selling harvesting organs from Chinese death-row inmates without their consent.

“I think it’s an accepted fact that organs are being removed from bodies of people executed. It’s deplorable. It’s to be condemned. I do not regard that as civilised,” Davis said.

The Chinese authorities denied last month this was happening, even after a BBC undercover investigation exposed the practice.

Amnesty International estimates 1,770 people were executed in China last year, but one Chinese expert believes the true figure could be more than four times higher.

Davis was in Berlin to award the Prix Europa’s Television Programme of the Year 2006 prize to the BBC documentary, “How to Plan a Revolution,” about the attempt of two young activists to stage another “Orange revolution” in Azerbaijan.

In his address he criticised the European media for failing to bring back pictures of the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. The public was “largely indifferent because there are no pictures,” he said.

A total of 129 countries have abolished the death penalty or are abolitionist in practice, according to Amnesty International. Sixty-eight still have the death penalty in force – a number too high for Davis.

“The death penalty is morally wrong and barbaric. Killing people is wrong, whether it is the state or the individual who does it,” Davis said.

Too often, Davis added, errors occur and an execution becomes an “irretrievable tragedy.”

“There have been several cases in a number of countries in Europe, notably in the United Kingdom, where people have been convicted of murders and subsequently found not to have committed those murders and released from prison.”

He cited as examples two IRA bombings in Birmingham and Guildford in 1974 in England. Ten innocent people were falsely convicted for the two bombings.

“If there had been the death penalty then, these people would have been executed,” he said.

Moreover, there is no evidence that fear of a death sentence acts as a deterrent to crime.

“It is ineffective,” he argued. “We know that from statistical evidence comparing different states in the United States of America where some states have it and some do not.”

Last year at least 2,148 people were executed worldwide. Human rights groups estimate that currently around 20,000 people are condemned to death.