A total of 133 countries, from all regions of the world, have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, and only 25 countries carried out executions in 2006. Ninety-one percent of all known executions took place in six countries: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the USA.
Although not legally binding, the UN moratorium on executions carries considerable moral and political weight. The resolution is a reminder of member states’ commitment to work towards the abolition of the death penalty. It is also an important tool to encourage retentionist countries to review their use of capital punishment.
Responding to the news, the Community of Saint Egidio, the Catholic movement active in opposing the death penalty for more than a decade, and one of the founding member groups of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, said, “This is a milestone that marks a new and widely shared moral standard that will be always more difficult and embarrassing to ignore on an international level. It is a sign of an important change in world conscience, which increasingly deems death inflicted by a state unacceptable, and a humiliation of fundamental human rights – the right to life. It is a fundamental contribution towards accelerating a process in which, since the 1990’s, over 50 nations have renounced the use of the death penalty.”
Italy has been one of the countries on the front line against the death penalty, and the Coliseum, one of the most celebrated monuments in the world, is lit up whenever a country abolishes the death penalty or adopts a moratorium on executions, or when a person condemned to death is pardoned. Therefore, to celebrate the UN vote on the death penalty, the historic monument, where thousands of Christians were put to death during the days of the Roman Empire, was lit up on Christmas Day.
The UN resolution is undoubtedly a major step forward in the fight against this cruel practice, but it is not yet a complete victory. In fact, just a few hours after the approval of the moratorium, Iran and China, two of the major upholders of capital punishment, gave proof of their contempt of the UN resolution. On December 19 at the Evin Prison in Iran, the biggest and most notorious jail in the country, seven men and one woman were put to death; while in China two teachers and Li Bin, the self-proclaimed “King of Shanghai’s Underworld,” were executed.
For a complete victory in the fight against the death penalty to take place, it is necessary to maintain the pressure on those countries still practicing this cruel and useless form of punishment, as well as on those countries who have temporarily abstained from it: it is by now clear to all that the death penalty is no deterrent at all to crime.
There is, however, another indicator which reveals that the victory is, unfortunately, only partial. The battle to abolish the death penalty is not complete and, in a way, makes no sense at all, if the countries promoting it are not also engaged in a more comprehensive defence of human life in all its forms, especially that of the unborn baby.
Mother Teresa once said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
If we achieved a complete and worldwide abolition of the death penalty, and yet ignored the silent cry for help issuing form the millions of unborn children, would we not be kidding ourselves into believing we had reached the pinnacle of civilisation?
Updated on October 06 2016