Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate ​‘Passionately Opposed to the Death Penalty,’ Has Died

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace lau­re­ate who described him­self as ​“pas­sion­ate­ly opposed to the death penal­ty,” died in Cape Town, South Africa on December 26, 2021. He was 90 years old.

Tutu, who as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town helped turn the con­science of the world against the white suprema­cist poli­cies of apartheid that oppressed his home­land, lat­er was tasked by President Nelson Mandela with chair­ing the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While unre­lent­ing in his oppo­si­tion to apartheid, he remained a con­sis­tent voice of non-violence. 

“The pass­ing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is anoth­er chap­ter of bereave­ment in our nation’s farewell to a gen­er­a­tion of out­stand­ing South Africans who have bequeathed us a lib­er­at­ed South Africa,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.

During his speech accept­ing the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, Tutu con­demned vio­lence both by gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty forces and by those fight­ing for the lib­er­a­tion of the nation’s Black major­i­ty. ​“We must be able, at the end of the day, to walk with our heads held high. Freedom must come, but free­dom must come in the right way,” he said.

Tutu also turned his moral com­pass against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“To a Christian whose belief sys­tem is root­ed in for­give­ness, the death penal­ty is unac­cept­able,” he said. ​“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.”

In an opin­ion col­umn in The Guardian in 2007, Tutu wrote: ​“The time has come to abol­ish the death penal­ty world­wide. The case for abo­li­tion becomes more com­pelling with each pass­ing year. Everywhere expe­ri­ence shows us that exe­cu­tions bru­talise both those involved in the process and the soci­ety that car­ries them out. Nowhere has it been shown that the death penal­ty reduces crime or polit­i­cal vio­lence. In coun­try after coun­try, it is used dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly against the poor or against racial or eth­nic minori­ties. It is often used as a tool of polit­i­cal repres­sion. It is imposed and inflict­ed arbi­trar­i­ly. It is an irrev­o­ca­ble pun­ish­ment, result­ing inevitably in the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple inno­cent of any crime. It is a vio­la­tion of fun­da­men­tal human rights.”

Observing the world­wide decline of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Tutu com­ment­ed, ​“The abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty is mak­ing us a civ­i­lized soci­ety. It shows we actu­al­ly do mean busi­ness when we say we have rev­er­ence for life.” What it said about the United States was another story. 

“I don’t want a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty [in the U.S.],” Tutu remarked. ​“I want the abo­li­tion of it. I can’t under­stand why a coun­try that’s so com­mit­ted to human rights doesn’t find the death penal­ty an obscenity.”