Entries tagged with “Human Rights”
Issues
Aug 27, 2024
68 Human Rights Organizations Express Support for Iranian Prisoners’ “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Abolition Movement Entering Its 31st Week
Amidst a continued post-election execution surge and increased suppression of peaceful prison protests, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 67 human rights organizations across four continents expressed their support for the ongoing “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” weekly hunger strike movement currently spanning 17 Iranian prisons across the country. The August 27, 2024 statement, published a day after the first public hanging of the year, “call[ed] for an immediate halt on all executions…
Issues
Aug 14, 2023
Singapore Announces Plans to Execute More Death-Sentenced Prisoners Convicted of Non-Violent Drug Offenses
Human rights advocates are criticizing the Singapore government’s plan to execute more death-sentenced prisoners convicted of non-violent drug offenses. Singapore has so far hanged 16 people since resuming state executions in March last year, and all of those executed were low- to mid-level drug offenders convicted of trafficking amounts of drugs that would currently result in relatively small punishments in the UK and US. There is widespread public support for use of the death penalty as an…
Issues
Jul 05, 2023
Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: China, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and UAE
A total of 68 executions have occurred in Saudi Arabia this year, with more than 20 executions relating to terrorism charges occurring since early May, according to Agence France-Presse. On July 3, five men, including one Egyptian national, were executed for a deadly attack on a house of worship in the Al-Ahsa governorate, resulting in five dead and several injured. On June 25, two Yemeni nationals were executed on terrorism charges, and on June 12, three Saudi men were executed for the killing…
Issues
May 17, 2023
Amnesty International Global Report: Recorded Executions Highest in Five Years Reflects Increases in the Middle East and North Africa
According to an annual death penalty report by Amnesty International, 2022 saw the highest number of recorded executions since 2017, primarily due to increases in just a handful of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The report also noted a slight decrease in the number of newly imposed death sentences worldwide. In its report, Amnesty says use of the death penalty in several countries continues to violate international law with public executions, executions of juveniles or those…
Issues
Apr 11, 2023
NEW RESOURCES: Human Rights and the Death Penalty
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), with the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Government of Germany, recently undertook a project examining the U.S. death penalty through a human rights lens. DPIC has added a series of human rights pages to its website, reframing three aspects of the death penalty – race, conditions of confinement, and executions – in light of human rights norms and treaties. The page on U.S. executions highlights various human rights issues related to…
Issues
Dec 20, 2022
U.S. Votes No, as Record Number of Nations Adopt UN Resolution for Global Moratorium on the Death Penalty
With the support of a record 125 nations, the United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view towards its ultimate abolition. The United States voted no, placing it in the company of Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. The final vote, taken on the 15th anniversary of the General Assembly’s first adoption of a moratorium resolution on December 15, 2007, was 125 nations in…
Issues
Dec 12, 2022
Iran Executes Two Prisoners Arrested in Ongoing Protests, Threatens More to Follow
In what human rights groups warn is just the start of a violent campaign of political repression, the Islamic Republic of Iran has begun executing protesters in the ongoing civil unrest following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini while in custody of the government’s morality police. On December 8, 2022, the Iranian regime hanged 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari (pictured, left), after a secret trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court. Four days later, in defiance of international condemnation of…
Issues
Dec 05, 2022
Saudi Arabia Reneges on Pledge to End Death Penalty for Drug Crimes; Execution Spree Draws Condemnation from UN and Human Rights NGOs
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a coalition of more than 30 non-governmental organizations have condemned the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a series of executions for drug crimes carried out in violation of international law. Human rights organizations reported that Saudi authorities executed 20 men in November for drug offenses — 12 of them foreign nationals — after suddenly lifting a moratorium on executions for defendants convicted of drug-related crimes. In a November 22, 2022…
Issues
Women
,Nov 10, 2022
Death Penalty Information Center Launches Series on Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty
The Death Penalty Information Center, supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, launched a new project on Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty on November 4, 2022, with a live-streamed panel discussion at the German embassy in Washington, D.C. The recorded event, which featured noted experts and was attended by scholars, advocates, and members of the world diplomatic corps, was the first in a series of webinars that will spotlight human rights issues in the use and…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Sep 21, 2022
Alabama Federal Court Issues Injunction Halting Execution of Alan Miller
A federal district court issued an order on September 19, 2022 to halt the scheduled September 22, 2022 execution of Alabama death-row prisoner Alan Miller “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia,” leading to a series of last-minute appeals by Alabama prosecutors and an after-hours execution-night ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to let the execution go forward. Alabama subsequently called off the execution when it became apparent more than two hours later that execution personnel would be…
Issues
Sep 20, 2022
Equatorial Guinea Becomes 25th African Country to Abolish Death Penalty
Equatorial Guinea has abolished the death penalty, becoming the 25th African nation to end capital punishment and the fourth in the past two years. According to state television reports, on September 19, 2022, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo signed into law a new criminal code that removes the death penalty from the statute books of the central African nation of 1.3 million people on the continent’s Atlantic coast. The new law is considered a major reform for one of the world’s most…
Issues
Military
,Sep 16, 2022
Guantánamo Prosecutor Who Advocated Use of Torture Testimony Removed from U.S.S. Cole Bombing Case
A second military commissions prosecutor who had advocated using testimony obtained by torture against defendants in the death penalty trial of the Guantánamo detainees charged with the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (pictured) in waters off the coast of Yemen has been removed from the case. Mark A. Miller, the lead prosecutor in the Cole case, was not present at a scheduled status conference on September 14, 2022 and defense lawyers for the five men charged in the bombing said they…
Issues
Jul 14, 2022
World News — Executions Surge in Iran in First Half of 2022
Executions have surged in Iran in the first half of 2022, doubling the total carried out during the same time span in 2021, human rights advocates report. Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norwegian-based non-profit organization that promotes human rights in Iran, said that at least 251 executions were performed from January to June 2022, compared to 117 in the first half of 2021. IHR raised concerns that the executions were being used as a political tool to intimidate anti-government protesters, and…
Issues
Federal Death Penalty
,Jul 11, 2022
In New Report, Amnesty International Urges President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty and Commute All Federal Death Sentences
A new report by the human rights organization Amnesty International urges President Joe Biden to act upon his campaign pledge to work to abolish the death penalty by exercising his constitutional authority to commute the sentences of all federal death row prisoners. The report, titled The Power of Example: Whither the Biden Death Penalty Promise?, was released on June 27, 2022, just two days before the 50th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia, which…
Issues
Jun 12, 2022
Malaysian Government Pledges to End Mandatory Death Penalty
The cabinet of the government of Malaysia announced on June 10, 2022 that it had reached agreement to abolish the nation’s mandatory death penalty laws and submit legislation to parliament to provide judges discretion to impose other penalties for capital crimes. Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the cabinet also agreed to study proposals to substitute sentences for those currently on death row for offences carrying the death penalty. Amnesty International reports that as of February…
Issues
Jun 06, 2022
Amnesty International: Mixed Global Trends on Death Penalty as More Nations Abolish and Record Few Conduct Executions, But Extreme Practices, Widespread Secrecy Reported in Outlier Nations
More countries abandoned the death penalty and a record low number carried it out, but extreme practices in a few outlier nations caused global executions to rise in 2021, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. Amnesty found mixed trends in its annual report on death sentences and executions, as the global geographic erosion of capital punishment continued, but a surge in executions in Iran and Saudi Arabia as pandemic restrictions eased led to a global increase of 20% in…
Issues
May 31, 2022
Zambia, Central African Republic Move to Abolish Death Penalty
Two more African nations have taken major steps towards abolishing the death penalty. On May 25, 2022, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema (pictured) announced that, in commemoration of Africa Freedom Day, he was commuting the sentences of 30 death-row prisoners and submitting a bill to parliament to end capital punishment in the southern African nation. Two days later, the National Assembly of the Central African Republic voted by acclamation to pass a law abolishing that nation’s death…
Issues
Conditions on Death Row
,May 24, 2022
Florida Becomes Latest State to End Permanent Death-Row Solitary Confinement After Settlement of Conditions Lawsuit
Florida has joined the growing number of states that have ended automatic permanent solitary confinement for prisoners sentenced to death. The Florida Department of Corrections agreed to the action as part of a settlement of a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by eight prisoners who alleged that the state’s death-row conditions were “extreme, debilitating, and inhumane, violate[d] contemporary standards of decency, and pose[d] an unreasonable risk of serious harm to the health and safety.”
Issues
May 23, 2022
Western Democracies, Human Rights Groups Denounce Belarus’ Use of Death Penalty to Target Political Opponents and Anti-War Activists
The U.S. State Department and the European Union have joined human rights and pro-democracy advocates in condemning the expansion of the death penalty in Belarus to include non-lethal “attempted acts of terrorism,” calling the measure an act of repression against opponents of the nation’s autocratic regime and its assistance to the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Belarus, a former Soviet satellite nation whose President, Alexander Lukashenko, has permitted Russia to use its territory…
Issues
Apr 07, 2022
Singapore Resumes Hangings for Drug Offenses, Provoking Outrage, Rare Public Protest
In a move sharply criticized by rights advocates as a violation of international human rights law, Singapore has resumed executions for non-violent drug offenses. On March 30, 2022, the authoritarian city/state hanged Abdul Kahar bin Othman on charges of drug trafficking, its first execution since November 2019. The execution of the 68-year-old bin Othman may presage a spate of executions, human rights leaders feared, following the denial of appeals earlier in March of an intellectually…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Women
,Mar 23, 2022
Report: Fewer Nations Using the Death Penalty for Drug Offenses, But Executions and Secrecy Are Up in Those that Do
Fewer countries are using the death penalty for drug offenses, but according to a new global report, executions increased in those that did and took place in proceedings characterized by authoritarianism and secrecy. In its eleventh annual report on The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2021, released mid-March 2022, the international drug monitor Harm Reduction International (HRI) found that eight “high application” nations contributed to an increase in known death sentences…
Issues
Religion
,Mar 16, 2022
Saudi Arabian Mass Execution of 81 People Draws Condemnation from U.N. High Commissioner, Rights Activists
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed 81 people on March 12, 2022, the largest mass execution in the modern history of the country, eliciting outrage from United Nations and non-governmental human rights organizations. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet issued a statement March 14 saying that the executions did not conform to “international human rights and humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime.” “I condemn Saudi Arabia’s mass execution,” she said. Saudi…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Conditions on Death Row
,Mar 02, 2022
Melissa Lucio Files Motions to Vacate Death Warrant, Remove Judge and District Attorney Based on Conflicts of Interest
Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio (pictured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 execution date and remove the judge and district attorney in her case because of conflicts of interest stemming from their employment of key members of Lucio’s original defense team. Lucio’s lead trial counsel, Peter Gilman, is now employed as an assistant district attorney in the Cameron County District Attorney’s office and Irma Gilman, who was counsel’s paralegal at the time of trial, is…
Issues
Military
,Feb 15, 2022
Department of Justice Reverses Course, Rejects Use of Evidence Obtained by Torture in Guantánamo Death Penalty Case
In what one analyst described as “an important step to restore the rule of law,” the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged not to use statements obtained by torture in its Guantánamo Military Commissions prosecution of Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Al-Nashiri. Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the Al Qaeda suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors in October 2000. The U.S. government is seeking the death penalty against him. In a brief filed January 31, 2022, the Department…
Issues
Religion
,Methods of Execution
,Jan 24, 2022
Citing ‘Christian Values,’ Papua New Guinea Abolishes the Death Penalty
Citing its “Christian values” and the unavailability of any humane means to carry out executions, Papua New Guinea has abolished capital punishment. On January 20, 2022, the PNG parliament voted to repeal the nation’s 30-year-old death penalty statute and replace capital punishment with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. “For us as a Christian nation,” Prime Minister James Marape (pictured) said, “the notion of ‘thou shall not kill’ still prevails.” The death penalty…
Issues
Religion
,Jan 03, 2022
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…
Issues
Conditions on Death Row
,Dec 22, 2021
Law Review: Most U.S. Death-Row Prisoners Have Been Housed in Prolonged Solitary Confinement that Violates International Human Rights Norms
More than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners are or have recently been incarcerated in prolonged conditions of solitary confinement that are likely unconstitutional and that violate international human rights norms, a DPIC analysis of data in a recent law review article has found. In Cruel but not Unusual: The Automatic Use of Indefinite Solitary Confinement on Death Row, published in fall 2021 in the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, Merel Pontier (pictured) catalogues the…
Issues
Nov 15, 2021
Death-Row Prisoners in Japan Sue Over Same-Day Notice of Executions
Two Japanese death-row prisoners have filed a lawsuit alleging that the country’s long-criticized practice of notifying prisoners of their execution the same day they are to be put to death is “inhumane” and violates the nation’s constitution. The suit, filed in Osaka District Court November 4, 2021, alleges that the day-of-execution notice, given just hours before the death-row prisoner is hanged, provides no time to contact their lawyers to file legal challenges to the execution and is…
Issues
Aug 24, 2021
Malawi Supreme Court Retreats from Opinion that Declared the Death Penalty Unconstitutional
In a confusing about-face that has angered human rights activists, the Malawian Supreme Court of Appeal has retreated from a prior decision of the court that had appeared to have abolished the African nation’s death penalty. On August 18, 2021, seven justices of the high court issued a “perfected” judgment in the case of Khoviwa v. The Republic declaring that the original opinion, authored by since-retired Justice of Appeal Dunstain Mwaungulu (pictured) and read from the bench in his absence on…
Issues
Aug 19, 2021
China Upholds Retaliatory Death Sentence Imposed on Canadian Citizen, Escalating Diplomatic Dispute
As China awaited a decision on whether Canada would extradite a top Chinese businesswoman to the U.S. on criminal charges, a Chinese court upheld a controversial death sentence imposed on a Canadian man, further escalating tensions between the two nations. On August 10, 2021, a Chinese court denied the appeal of Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian national who was sentenced to death in China one month after Canadian officials arrested Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer at Chinese technology…
Issues
Jul 26, 2021
Sierra Leone Becomes 23rd African Country to Abolish the Death Penalty
The parliament of Sierra Leone voted unanimously on July 23, 2021 to abolish the death penalty, making the West African nation of 7.8 million people the 23rd country on the continent and the 110th worldwide to end capital punishment. Pledging to sign the bill into law, President Julius Maada Bio (pictured) said on Twitter, “Today, I have fulfilled a governance pledge to permanently abolish the death penalty in Sierra Leone. I thank citizens, members of Parliament, development partners, and…
Issues
Military
,Jul 21, 2021
At Odds with Biden Administration’s Concern Over Use of Statements Obtained by Torture, Chief Guantánamo Prosecutor Retires
After clashing with Biden administration officials over the propriety of using statements obtained through torture from Guantánamo detainees, Army Brigadier General Mark S. Martins (pictured), the chief prosecutor in the Guantánamo Military Commissions trials, will retire from the military on September 30, 2021. Martins, who had served as the commissions’ chief prosecutor throughout the Obama and Trump administrations, abruptly submitted papers on July 7 providing notice of his early…
Issues
Apr 21, 2021
Amnesty International Global Report: Executions Worldwide Fewest in a Decade, Death Sentences Fall More Than One Third in 2020
Fewer executions were carried out across the world in 2020 than at any time in a decade and new death sentences fell by more than a third, according to a new report by Amnesty International. It was the third consecutive year in which confirmed executions reached a 10-year low, and the sixth year in a row in which confirmed executions declined, Amnesty said. The human rights organization’s report, Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2020, released April 21, 2021, said that Amnesty had…
Issues
Apr 16, 2021
Global Death Penalty Report: Executions for Drug Offenses Down 75% Worldwide
Executions for drug offenses plummeted worldwide during 2020, according to a new report by the global drug-policy monitor Harm Reduction International (HRI). Three countries — China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran — carried out 30 confirmed executions for non-violent drug crimes over the course of the year, the group reported in its annual analysis, The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2020. The total, the April 7, 2021 report said, was the lowest since HRI began reporting on…
Issues
Federal Death Penalty
,Mar 25, 2021
UN Human Rights Experts Urge U.S. Federal Government to Take Steps to End the Death Penalty
Describing capital punishment as an “inherently flawed” and “abhorrent practice,” United Nations human rights experts have called on President Joe Biden to take action to end the death penalty in the U.S. In a statement issued from the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland on March 11, 2021, the rights experts said the death penalty “serves no deterrent value and cannot be reconciled with the right to life.” A press release from the High Commissioner’s…
Issues
Jan 03, 2021
NEWS BRIEF — Kazakhstan Abolishes the Death Penalty
After a seventeen-year moratorium on executions, the Republic of Kazakhstan has formally abolished the death penalty. On January 2, 2021, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev added his signature to a bill passed by Kazakhstan’s parliament December 29 ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international treaty that commits signatory nations to abolishing capital punishment. The country suspended all executions in December 2003.
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Conditions on Death Row
,Women
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 18, 2020
Human Rights Tribunal Calls for Stay of Execution for Lisa Montgomery
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the human rights body charged with overseeing Western Hemisphere nations’ compliance with human rights obligations, has called on the United States to halt the scheduled January 12, 2021 execution of Lisa Montgomery. Citing Montgomery’s history of extreme trauma and mental illness and the irreversibility of execution, the IACHR ruled on December 1, 2020, that Montgomery had presented serious claims that her execution and her current…
Issues
Nov 11, 2020
U.S. Death Penalty Criticized by U.N. Human Rights Council During Human Rights Review
The United States faced harsh criticism from the world community for its continued use of capital punishment during a United Nations review of its human rights record on November 9, 2020. During the U.N. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of the United States’ human rights record on November 9, 2020, countries around the world criticized the U.S. for systemic racism, police violence against civilians, separation of immigrant families and internment of immigrant children, and use of…
Issues
Oct 29, 2020
Human Rights Organizations: Saudi Arabia’s Claims to Have Banned the Death Penalty for Juveniles are Belied by the Kingdom’s Actual Practices
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty against people accused of crimes committed as juveniles, despite a royal decree claiming to ban that practice, human rights organizations and defense lawyers have charged. On October 19, 2020, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights issued a statement saying that thirteen prisoners still faced the death penalty in the kingdom for alleged crimes committed as juveniles. The following day, citing “glaring exceptions” in the…
Issues
Sep 29, 2020
Kazakhstan Signs Global Treaty to Abolish Death Penalty
The Republic of Kazakhstan has joined the ranks of nations that have formally committed to abolishing the death penalty. On September 23, 2020, in conjunction with the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that the country had signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits signatory nations to abolish the death penalty. The action was taken as a step “[t]o…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Time on Death Row
,Jun 22, 2020
DPIC Report — At least 1,300 Prisoners are on U.S. Death Rows in Violation of U.S. Human Rights Obligations
At least 1,300 prisoners have been imprisoned on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in violation of U.S. human rights obligations, a Death Penalty Information Center report on death-row incarceration practices has found. The number represents more than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the prisoners whose lengthy death-row incarcerations violate their human rights are on death row in California. DPIC also found that an additional 191…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Jun 22, 2020
DPIC Analysis — At Least 1,300 Prisoners are on U.S. Death Rows in Violation of U.S. Human Rights Obligations
At least 1,300 prisoners have been incarcerated on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in violation of U.S. human rights obligations, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of death-row demographic data has found. The number represents more than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the prisoners whose extended incarcerations on death row violate their human rights are facing execution in California. Nearly 200 more condemned prisoners were…
Issues
Apr 22, 2020
Amnesty International Report: Confirmed Executions and Death Sentences Continue Global Decline, But Secrecy Hinders Accurate Assessment of Trends
Executions across the globe fell 5% worldwide in 2019 to the fewest in more than a decade, despite a record number of executions in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International reported in the human rights organization’s Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions in 2019. The Amnesty report, released April 21, 2020, detailed rising political abuse of the death penalty in the Middle East, but said the region’s increased executions were offset by declines in executions in the Asia-Pacific region and…
Issues
Conditions on Death Row
,Apr 16, 2020
Federal Court Approves Settlement of Pennsylvania Death-Row Conditions Lawsuit
A federal district court judge has approved a settlement of a class action challenge to the conditions of confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row that officially ends the state’s policy of mandatory incarceration of death-row prisoners in permanent solitary confinement. The court approval comes nearly five months after the Department of Corrections agreed to a tentative change to the conditions of incarceration. In a 14-page Memorandum and Order, Judge John E. Jones III of the United States…
Issues
Apr 14, 2020
World Death Penalty News — Report: Saudi Arabia Carries Out 800th Execution Under King Salman
NEWS (4/14/20) — Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has carried out its 800th execution under the five-year reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, according to reports by the human rights groups European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve. The groups say the execution rate is nearly double the rate in the five years preceding Salman’s assumption of leadership in the Kingdom in 2015. From 2009 to 2014, Saudi Arabia carried out a total of 423 executions. The 185…
Issues
Mar 26, 2020
United Kingdom Supreme Court Rules Britain Cannot Provide Evidence to U.S. for Use in Death-Penalty Cases
In a decision that exposed the deep divide between the United States and its European allies on capital punishment issues, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously ruled that the British government unlawfully provided information to the United States about two suspected Islamic State members without first obtaining assurances that the information would not be used to impose or carry out the death penalty. The landmark ruling, issued March 25, 2020 in the case of Elgizouli v.
Issues
Dec 24, 2019
Political Application of Capital Punishment on Prominent Display in Pakistan and Middle East
The use of the death penalty as a political weapon was on display in late December 2019 in an extraordinary series of four unrelated cases in Pakistan and the Middle East. In Pakistan, a special tribunal tried and convicted the nation’s former leader, General Pervez Musharraf (pictured), of high treason and sentenced him to death. Days later, a Pakistani civilian court convicted a Muslim professor of blasphemy and sentenced him to death. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after a secret trial that…
Issues
Oct 16, 2019
Mixed Signals From Uganda as Officials Advocate, then Disavow, Death Penalty For LGBTQ Conduct
Facing a potential backlash from major aid donors, Uganda’s president has attempted to distance his government from legislative efforts to reintroduce a bill that would make consensual same-sex acts punishable by the death penalty and criminalize “promotion and recruitment” of homosexuality. The so-called “Kill the Gays” bill previously promoted by government officials would greatly expand the punishment of homosexuality under Ugandan law. The proposed bill is a more draconian version of a law…
Issues
Apr 25, 2019
Saudi Arabia Condemned for Mass Execution of 37 People, Including Juveniles, After Unfair Trials
In an action condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a flagrant violation of international law, Saudi Arabia beheaded 37 people, including juvenile offenders, in six separate locations on April 23, 2019. It was the nation’s largest mass execution since January 2016. Most of the people executed were members of the Shi’a Muslim minority community. The human rights advocates blasted Saudi officials for targeting politically disfavored groups and disregarding international fair…
Issues
Apr 10, 2019
Amnesty International 2018 Global Report: Executions Worldwide Fall to Lowest Level in a Decade
Executions worldwide have fallen to their lowest levels in a decade, according to a new report released April 9, 2019 by Amnesty International. In its annual Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2018, the human rights organization says it recorded at least 690 executions in 20 countries in 2018, a 31% decline from the 993 executions it recorded in 23 nations in 2017 and 58% below the 1,634 reported executions in 2015. Five countries accounted for 84% of all recorded executions — Iran…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Nov 13, 2018
U.N. Human Rights Officials Say Planned Texas Execution Violates International Treaties
United Nations human rights officials have urged the government of the United States to halt the imminent execution of a Mexican national who was tried and sentenced to death in Texas in violation of U.S. treaty obligations. Texas is scheduled to execute Roberto Moreno Ramos (pictured) on November 14, in an action an international human rights court has said would violate the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Agnes Callamard, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on…
Issues
Sep 12, 2018
New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Condemns Mass Death Sentences Imposed in Egypt
Incoming United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet (pictured), has condemned the mass trial of more than 700 protesters in a Cairo, Egypt, criminal court, in which 75 defendants were sentenced to death. The court also imposed life sentences on 47 others on September 8 and sentenced another 612 defendants to prison terms of 15, 10, or 5 years. The defendants faced charges ranging from “illegal gathering” to murder and attempted murder arising from their involvement in…
Issues
Women
,Aug 31, 2018
Cases in Sudan, Saudi Arabia Illustrate Use of Death Penalty Against Women to Enforce Gender Norms
In high-profile cases in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, human rights advocates are protesting the threatened use of the death penalty against women for resisting oppression. In the Sudan, prosecutors are seeking to reinstate the death sentence against Noura Hussein (pictured), a teen girl forced into marriage who killed her abusive husband as he tried to rape her. The Saudi Arabian government is seeking the death penalty against Israa al-Ghomgham, an activist who has sought equal rights for Shiite…
Issues
Aug 28, 2018
Amnesty International Issues Report on the Death Penalty in Florida
A new report by Amnesty International says Florida’s approach to redressing the nearly 400 unconstitutional non-unanimous death sentences imposed in the state has deepened its status as an outlier on death-penalty issues by “add[ing] an extra layer of arbitrariness to [the state’s] already discriminatory and error-prone capital justice system.” The report, released on August 23, 2018, examines the impact of Florida’s reponse to U.S. and Florida Supreme Court rulings in Hurst v. Florida and…
Issues
Apr 12, 2018
Amnesty International Report: Death Penalty Use Down Worldwide in 2017
Use of the death penalty declined worldwide in 2017, according to the Amnesty International’s annual global report on capital punishment. The human rights organization recorded 2,591 death sentences imposed in 53 countries in 2017, down 17% from the 3,117 death sentences it recorded from 55 countries in 2016. Executions also fell, with 23 nations carrying out a recorded 993 executions, off 4% from the 1,032 executions recorded in 2016 and 39% below the 1,634 executions reported in 2015. Two…
Issues
Mar 16, 2018
Human Rights Advocates: Prisoner’s Rare Medical Condition Risks Gruesome Botched Execution in Missouri
Human rights advocates are warning that the impending execution of Russell Bucklew (pictured) in Missouri on March 20 presents a “substantially increase[d] risk of a gruesome and botched execution.” Court pleadings and a March 14 letter from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) say that Bucklew suffers from congenital cavernous hemangioma, a rare and severe blood-vessel condition that his lawyers and doctors say compromises his veins and…
Issues
Nov 28, 2017
Senior U.N. Official Assails Death-Penalty Secrecy As Obstruction of Human Rights
A senior United Nations human rights official has criticized the secrecy with which countries carry out the death penalty and called for greater transparency by countries that still employ capital punishment. “There is far too much secrecy,” United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour (pictured) said in an interview released November 21 by the U.N. News Centre, “and it’s quite indicative the fact that although many countries are giving up the practice, those that…
Issues
Religion
,Oct 06, 2017
US Votes Against UN Resolution Condemning Death Penalty for Religious Speech, Sexual Orientation
The United States has voted against an historic resolution passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning the criminalization of and use of the death penalty for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and consensual same-sex relations and calling on nations in which the death penalty is legal to ensure that it is not imposed “arbitrarily or in a discriminatory manner.” The resolution also called for an end to the discriminatory use of the death penalty “against persons belonging to racial…
Issues
Sep 14, 2017
Human Rights Groups Urge U.S. Government To Sanction Officials Accused Of Torture, Executions Under New Law
A coalition of 23 human rights groups, including Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve, has urged the United States government to issue sanctions against foreign government officials who they say have used the death penalty to repress political dissent by torturing peaceful protesters into confessing to capital offenses they did not commit. In a September 12, 2017 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the non-governmental organizations…
Issues
Death Row Overview
,Apr 27, 2017
Study: Texas’ ‘Harsh and Inhumane’ Death-Row Conditions Amount to ‘Torture’
The conditions in which prisoners on Texas’ death row are confined are “harsh and inhumane,” violate international human rights norms, and amount to “a severe and relentless act of torture,” according to a new study by the University of Texas School of Law Human Rights Clinic. The study, “Designed to Break You,” collected accounts from former death-row prisoners who had been exonerated or who had received lesser sentences after their death sentences had been overturned. Their stories revealed…
Issues
Jun 27, 2016
World Congress Against the Death Penalty Renews Call for Global Moratorium, Pope Sends Message of Support
Delegates to the Sixth World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Oslo, Norway from June 21 to June 23, 2016, have renewed the organization’s call for a global moratorium on capital punishment. The event, attended by more than 1300 representatives from 80 countries, featured discussions by death penalty stakeholders from around the world. Participants included human rights officials from the United Nations and European Union, as well as Justice Ministers from both abolitionist and…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Aug 24, 2015
Human Rights Commission Calls for Stay of Execution for Nicaraguan Man on Texas Death Row
(UPDATE: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted Bernardo Tercero a stay of execution to permit him to litigate evidence that a lead prosecution witness testified falsely against him.) The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a unit of the Organization of American States, has called on Texas officials to stay the execution of Nicaraguan citizen Bernardo Tercero (pictured), who is scheduled to be executed in Texas on August 26. Under international treaties on consular…
Issues
Dec 10, 2013
Former Gov. Bill Richardson Issues Human Rights Day Statement on International Decline of Death Penalty
December 10 is Human Rights Day, the 65th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark this anniversary, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (pictured) joined Federico Mayor, President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, in drawing attention to the steady decline internationally in the use of the death penalty. As governor, Richardson had signed New Mexico’s death-penalty repeal bill in 2009. In an op-ed in the…
Issues
Death Row Overview
,Nov 01, 2013
STUDIES: Human Rights Groups Examine Death Penalty in California and Louisiana
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights recently released an analysis of the death penalty in California and Louisiana. The report concluded that those states’ application of capital punishment “violates U.S. obligations under international human rights law to prevent and prohibit discrimination and torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” Researchers conducted interviews with many of those involved in the legal system and examined data on…
Issues
Death Row Overview
,Oct 31, 2012
INTERNATIONAL: UN Investigator Claims Executions are Increasingly Viewed as Torture Around the World
On October 23, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, told a UN General Assembly human rights committee that countries around the world are increasingly viewing capital punishment as a form of torture because of the severe mental and physical pain it inflicts on those sentenced to death. Mendez told the committee, “States need to re-examine their procedures under international law because the ability of states to impose and carry out the death penalty is diminishing as…
Issues
Jun 09, 2010
NEW RESOURCES: The Death Penalty for Drug Offences — Global Overview 2010
The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) recently published a report on the use of the death penalty for drug crimes around the world. The report distinguishes between countries that have legislation allowing a death sentence for drug offenses and those that actually apply it in practice. According to the report, 32 jurisdictions retain the death penalty for drug offenses (out of the 58 countries that have the death penalty for any offense), at least 12 of which were known to have…
Issues
Dec 17, 2009
INTERNATIONAL: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Calls for an End to the Death Penalty
On December 15 the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights marked the 20th anniversary of an international death penalty treaty by calling for the universal abolition of capital punishment. Navi Pillay, the top UN human rights official, urged all states to adopt the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The protocol, which bars the death penalty, was introduced in 1989. “Abolishing the death penalty is a difficult process for many societies,”…
Issues
Oct 12, 2007
European Union and World Leaders Mark Day Against the Death Penalty
Member nations of the European Union and the Council of Europe marked October 10th as “European Day Against the Death Penalty,” an action to underscore the continent’s firm commitment to ending executions throughout the world. Leaders from the EU and the Council of Europe launched the initative during an October 9th conference in Lisbon, Portugal. On October 10 in New York at the United Nations, a press conference also marked the “World Day Against the Death Penalty” with international human…
Issues
Aug 01, 2006
U.N. Human Rights Committee Urges U.S to Place Moratorium on Death Penalty
Citing the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a United Nations panel recommended that the United States impose a moratorium on executions. The report, issued on July 28 by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, stated the panel was “concerned by studies according to which the death penalty may be imposed disproportionately on ethnic minorities as well as on low-income groups, a problem which does not seem to be fully acknowledged.” The panel, made up of 18 independent experts…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Apr 01, 2003
Amnesty International: Violation of the Rights of Foreign Nationals Under Sentence of Death
More than 60 foreign citizens representing 22 nationalities are under sentence of death in the United States of America (USA). In virtually every case, the arresting authorities failed to notify detained foreigners of their right to communicate with their consular representatives. As a consequence, foreign nationals confronted by an unfamiliar legal system were tried and sentenced to death without the benefit of the crucial support from the authorities of their native countries. Since 1993, the…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Foreign Nationals
,Time on Death Row
,Nov 12, 1998
The US Death Penalty and International Law: US Compliance with the Torture and Race Conventions
Ford Foundation Symposium November 12, 1998 by Richard C. Dieter, Esq. Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center Introduction The U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Torture Convention) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 19841 and ratified by the United States ten years later. In all, 176 countries have either ratified or signed the torture convention. The thrust of this treaty…