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| Aubrey Harris |
Amnesty International founder Peter Benenson’s 1961 letter in The Observer, which kicked off the Amnesty movement, begins with the line: “Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government.” Since 1977, we have included universal abolition of the death penalty as a mission of Amnesty International, on the grounds that it is a violation of fundamental human rights, as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By its very essence, the death penalty violates Article 3, the right to life. And in practice, it will always violate Article 5, the right not to be subjected to cruel or inhumane treatment or punishment.
When we say that our human rights are indivisible and interconnected, it is absolutely clear that denying the right to life, which is in essence a right to exist, has the effect of denying all other rights. When a government gives itself the authority to declare that some people deserve to live and others do not, it takes away access to any right and leaves only privilege or favour of the powerful.
Fortunately, most governments, including our own, have come to agree the death penalty is a violation of human rights. The number of abolitionist countries continues to grow and reflects the majority of countries in the world. Unfortunately, we have also seen in a small number of countries in recent years dramatic increases in the use of the death penalty, including in ways that blatantly violate international law, such as executions for political crimes or non-lethal drug crimes, as happened Wednesday when Singapore executed drug trafficker Pannir Selvam Pranthaman.
Iran has already executed at least 1,000 prisoners this year — the highest count by Amnesty International in at least 15 years. In a recent press release, we noted: “Since the 2022 Woman Life Freedom uprising, the Iranian authorities increased their use of the death penalty as a tool of state repression and to crush dissent, and amid an ongoing spike in executions for drug-related offences.”
Similarly, we have seen in the United States the appalling executive order by U.S. President Trump calling for increased use of the death penalty and encouragement to carry out executions. Amnesty International USA’s deputy director of research, Justin Mazzola, said: “Similar to President Trump’s deployment of the national guard to D.C., this directive is a continuation of Trump’s pattern of pushing a political agenda rooted in fear, not facts. In Washington, D.C., violent crime is already at its lowest level in 30 years.”
Government misinformation on the death penalty, even enforced misinformation such as Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) orders, is used to oppress lawyers, activists and organizations opposing executions.
This year, Amnesty International is calling for action on a number of global cases where government oppression and misinformation have played prominent roles, including:
- Gradi Koko Lobanga and Navy Malela in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whistleblowers who were sentenced to death in absentia and after unfair trials. Their families have faced harassment and supporting organizations have been smeared. Death sentences have recently soared in DRC, and the government has repeatedly threatened to restart executions, using as justification the need to combat “treason” within the army, at a time when the DRC is facing an escalation of armed conflicts, and to end deadly gang violence in several cities, including the capital Kinshasa.
- Matsumoto Kenji in Japan, who has been on death row for over 30 years and could be executed at any time — in Japan death row prisoners are not informed of the date of execution in advance. He has severe intellectual and mental disabilities (allegedly due to mercury poisoning — common in certain areas of Japan due to industrial pollution), that have impacted his ability to defend himself and, at present, does not have a rational understanding of his punishment. Last year, we celebrated the release of Hakamada Iwao, coined the “Eastern Hurricane” by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, following decades on death row after an unfair trial. Japan, like a number of other countries, remains extremely secretive about its use of the death penalty and in so doing keeps the public uninformed, undermining government arguments citing “public opinion polls” to justify executions.
- Abdullah al-Derazi at risk in Saudi Arabia for crimes alleged to have happened when he was below the age of 18 (such executions are clear violations of international law such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Arrested in 2014 for protesting the treatment of the Shia minority in al-Qatif while he was still a child. He was convicted and sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial that relied on a torture-tainted “confession” for his alleged participation in violent attacks and possession of illegal weapons during anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012.
As you will see on Amnesty International websites around the world, activism and action can take many forms. Some through art, some through letters, some through government lobbying and protests, and others through legal action. Those in the legal community are only too aware of the flaws that allow wrongful convictions, of the ways laws can be misused and, even when applied legally, how bad laws and bad policy can have tragic results. Friday is both a day to take action for those at risk and a day to celebrate the global progress of abolition.
Aubrey Harris is the co-ordinator in the Amnesty International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty, Canadian Section (English-Speaking Branch). He can be reached at dpacoordinator@amnesty.ca.
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