America and the world's executioners join efforts to block UN moves to end death penalty

Nice company we keep. :eyes:


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/article3160630.ece


By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 15 November 2007

In China, a death sentence means a bullet in the back of the head. In Iran, it means death by hanging. In Saudi Arabia, the victim is beheaded by the sword.

World public opinion has been so outraged by the continued use of the death penalty in the 25 countries that carried out executions last year, that a petition carrying five million signatures has been presented to the UN, where yesterday a small group of countries were attempting to block the historic vote on a global moratorium that could lead to an all-out ban.

The UN initiative is the brainchild of Italy, where the association Hands off Cain, campaigning for an end to the death penalty, convinced Prime Minister Romano Prodi to push for an end to the death sentence after the botched and humiliating hanging of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein last year.

If last-minute "killer" amendments to a draft UN resolution do not scupper the initiative, the 192-nation UN human rights committee will begin voting on the measure today. If adopted, it will give a powerful moral boost to those campaigning for an end to the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

As of last night, the draft resolution had been sponsored by 85 states, including all 27 European Union nations. The United States, which executed 53 people last year, will vote against. So will China, which put 2,790 people to death last year. In fact 91 per cent of all death sentences carried out happen in six countries: China, the US, Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq and Iran, where two men were publicly hanged for murder and robbery yesterday.

...

The claim that it is more "humane" makes it even more ghoulish.

Where does the authoritarian streak in this country come from? The Puritans? Why do the rest of us, the democrats with a small d, still put up with the Puritans' shit?

:wtf:

The Puritans have a lot to do with our current (grotesque) state of affairs. I don't put up with authoritarianism and christo-fascism.

:applause:

Right on! (Talking about the Garden, you know.)

The monsters are now here in this present rime. Thanks(?) for showing them.