A world shift from execution

Because of the "limited utility" of the death penalty in China, "should we not change our point of view and look for more effective ways of preventing crime?" asks Wang Zuofu, a teacher at China's People's University and critic of capital punishment.

The most recent study on the link between the death penalty and murder rates, carried out for the UN in 1988, found that "research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment and such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming."

In many places, such practical arguments over the practical deterrent impact of the death penalty have been superceded by moral considerations about the value of human life, and here the Roman Catholic church has recently taken a leading role. In the past four years, Pope John Paul II has repeatedly condemned capital punishment and "his commitment has been a determining factor" in swinging governments' attitudes, says Vicenzo Paglia, Bishop of Terni in Italy.

In Chile, for example, which will formally abolish the death penalty on June 19, even generally conservative church leaders put their weight behind the move, and religious opinion has made itself felt elsewhere.

Former President Joseph Estrada began mass commutations of death sentences last year in the heavily Catholic Philippines; Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi has not signed a death warrant since the mid-1980s because of his religious convictions; and in South Africa, Nelson Mandela's moral indignation at the death penalty ensured the punishment was banned under the country's post-apartheid Constitution.

"The death penalty has not been the subject of mainstream political debate," in South Africa, says David Bruce, senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Braamfontein. The new Constitution "enables politicians to wash their hands of the issue, in a sense, and may mean that the issue has less of a potential to become a political football."

That has been the case for the past 20 years in Western Europe, where the death penalty is no longer on the agenda, 34 years after the last man was put to death, in France.

Though polls suggest that in some European countries, a majority of voters would like to see capital punishment reintroduced for particularly heinous crimes, the general feeling is that "the death penalty today is like slavery or torture in the past, a heritage of the times when humanity was a more violent child," says Mr. Marazziti, a leader of the lay Catholic Sant Egidio community, based in Rome.

Guatemala's lesson

Underpinning European attitudes is a sense that state-sanctioned killings brutalize society and devalue human life. Guatemala's experience appears to support such claims.

A year ago, two convicted kidnapper-murderers were put to death by lethal injection, live on national television. The government hoped it would teach a lesson to criminals. Instead, it seems to have encouraged ordinary citizens to take matters into their own hands: 17 suspected criminals have been lynched by angry mobs so far this year.

"The government wanted these executions to have a social impact, and they got it. If anything, they've led to more barbarity," complains Emilio Goubaud, who works at Guatemala's Center for Legal Action on Human Rights.

With public opinion often not convinced by abolitionist arguments, campaigners against the death penalty are concentrating on securing at least a moratorium on executions, such as Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared last year.

Sant Egidio's global petition, which now has 3.5 million signatures, is designed "to help governments take difficult decisions ... a moratorium is a kind of bridge" toward abolition, explains Marazziti.

While there are high-profile defeats, such as Mr. McVeigh's pending execution, Marazziti points to victories, too. On June 19, a week after McVeigh's scheduled death, the lights of Rome's Colosseum will be turned on to mark Chile's abolition of the death penalty.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor

Page: 1 | 2 | 3