'Cities for Life' say no to the death penalty

(Vatican Radio) Over 1.600 cities are gearing up to say ‘Yes’ to life and ‘No’ to the death penalty, as part of an annual initiative organized by the Rome-based St Egidio community. Begun over a decade ago to raise awareness about the campaign to end capital punishment worldwide, the ‘Cities for Life’ event now includes marches, meetings and symbolic events in cities right across the globe.

Here in Rome the three day programme featured a meeting at the Italian parliament on Thursday, an international summit of Justice Ministers on Friday and will conclude with a ceremony for the lighting up of the Colosseum on Saturday November 30th.

While the list of countries abolishing, suspending, or commuting death sentences continues to increase, there has also been a number of nations – Gambia, Japan, India, Pakistan and Iraq - that have reintroduced or increased executions over the past year.

Among the goals of the St Egidio initiative is to highlight the Church’s care and concern for the dignity of all people in prison, especially those on death row. Among those bringing powerful, personal stories of serving as lay chaplain to prisoners on death row in Florida is lawyer, author and activist Dale Recinella. He shares some of those stories with Philippa Hitchen.... Listen here.

Source: Vatican Radio, November 29, 2013

European delegate urges Japan to abolish death penalty

Main gallows at
Tokyo Detention Center

A delegate and a legislator from Europe called on Japan in a forum Thursday to join the majority of countries in the world in abolishing the death penalty.

Maeve Collins, deputy head of the European Union's delegation to Japan, called the death penalty "an affront to human dignity and always a violation of human rights" regardless of circumstance at the forum co-hosted in Tokyo by the European Commission and the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio to discuss the abolition of capital punishment.

Collins emphasized the "need for an open debate within Japanese society" on the issue, adding, "It is important that the public receive correct and comprehensive information about executions and the conditions on death row in their country."

The EU charter prohibits member states from retaining capital punishment.

Around 150 of the 193 U.N. member states have either abolished the practice or put a moratorium in place, according to the United Nations.

"The Japanese method of hanging is no better than other forms" of capital punishment such as by stoning or firing squad, Mario Marazziti, head of the Italian House of Representatives' Committee for Human Rights, said through a translator.

"Japanese people have to change their mindset" about the death penalty for change to happen, he added.

Shizuka Kamei, member of Japan's House of Representatives and head of a parliamentary group for the abolition of the practice, said bureaucratic opposition to abolition is gradually waning in the face of international pressure, mainly from Europe.

Japan has carried out 6 executions so far this year. There are currently 132 inmates with finalized death sentences, according to the Justice Ministry.

Source: Kyodo News International, November 2, 2013

"Maryland repeal law supported by entire Catholic Church": Sant'Egidio

Maryland becomes the 6th U.S. state since 2007 to exclude the death penalty from its laws, following similar measures in New Jersey, New Mexico, New York state, Illinois, and Connecticut.

This movement brings to 18 the number of U.S. states that have opted for a system of justice that respects life in every circumstance.

For years, the Community of Sant'Egidio has worked alongside American abolitionists and, with the City of Rome, will celebrate this great victory by lighting up the Colosseum (pictured) in a special way.

This is a great victory that has progressively won the support of a significant majority of Maryland citizens. Several attempts to pass a law abolishing capital punishment failed by just a few votes. Following the approval by the Senate and the House last March -- with a final vote in the House of 82 to 56 -- the official signing of the law is part of an important season for efforts to abolish the death penalty throughout the United States. Gov. O'Malley has long been a supporter of the proposal and has said the resources saved thanks to the abolition of capital punishment will be used to help the families of murder victims. This is unlike what was contemplated in the proposal for a referendum in California to ban capital punishment; the measure would have devoted the justice system's savings to police and other public safety measures.

The Maryland law was supported by several associations of victims' families and by the entire Catholic Church. Baltimore Archbishop William Lori and Auxiliary Bishop Denis J.Madden testified in hearings against capital punishment and were part of the special commission set up before the legislature began working to dialogue with the public and lawmakers. Many political and religious leaders joined them in the work.

Kirk Bloodsworth and Shuja Graham, who were freed from death row after their innocence was recognized, and Vicki Schieber, a Maryland citizen whose daughter was brutally murdered in Philadelphia in 1988, all gave moving testimonies about their opposition to capital punishment so as not to increase the number of innocent victims and to move away from an erroneous sense of justice as vengeance and compensation for the victims' families. "Do not kill again in our name," "The death penalty is a failure; it only adds death to death and should be abolished," they said.

On the occasion of the governor's signing the new law, the Archdiocese of Baltimore has announced it will illuminate in a special way the outside and the inside of the Baltimore cathedral, the Basilica of the Shrine of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which has served as the cathedral since 1821 and is the oldest cathedral in the United States. The signing of the law is a victory for life, strongly supported by the U.S. Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which will symbolically become a member of the Cities for Life movement. 

Source: Sant'Egidio, May 3, 2013

Catholic activism on the death penalty; a brief dispatch from Denmark

Public execution in Iran

Rumors of the death of the church's passion for social justice have been greatly exaggerated, at least to judge by a high-profile international conference in Rome on Tuesday promoting global abolition of the death penalty, which was organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio.

The conference was titled, "A World without the Death Penalty: No Justice without Life."

[T]he conference confirmed that the death penalty is hardly on the brink of becoming obsolete. Among the salient data:

• 58 nations still have the death penalty on the books, though the number in which executions are actually carried out is smaller. In 2011, executions were performed in 20 nations.
• In 2011, there were an estimated 5,000 people executed around the world, of whom roughly 4,000 were put to death in China.
• Four nations in 2011 and early 2012 returned to using the death penalty, bucking the abolitionist trend: Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Botswana and Japan.
• In 2011, 1,923 death sentences were handed down in 63 nations.
• Also in 2011, there were at least 18,750 persons on death row, an estimate experts stressed is conservative, given that only a few nations release complete data on whom they have in jail, and in countries such as Belarus, China, Mongolia and Vietnam, death sentences are actually considered state secrets.
• The United States was in fifth place worldwide in 2011 in the number of people it put to death, with 43. The U.S. trailed China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. (As a footnote, that was the third-lowest annual total of executions in America in the last 17 years.) At the moment, 3,189 people are on America's death rows.

Of particular concern, according to participants, is the application of the death penalty to minors (as in Iran) and in cases of mental illness or mental disability (including in the United States). Participants also flagged pressure in some countries to expand use of the death penalty to combat drug trafficking, terrorism and even homosexuality. (In 2011, Liberia and Uganda both launched efforts to impose the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.)

Laurence Argimon-Pistre spoke on behalf of the European Union, saying it intends to spend about $15 million next year on lobbying efforts against the death penalty. As preliminary steps toward total abolition, Argimon-Pistre laid out five priorities:

• Legal assistance to prisoners awaiting execution, to ensure they get a fair trial
• Promoting legal and constitutional reform in states that still use the death penalty -- for instance, making sure the right of appeal is upheld
• Monitoring detention conditions and the treatment of prisoners on death row
• Studies and reports on "miscarriages of justice" and abuse of the legal system
• Restricting the trade of goods and technical assistance necessary to carry out capital punishment -- for instance, Pistre said, tightening up the sale of "new generation medicines used for lethal injection".

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Source: National Catholic Reporter, November 30, 2012