Today is World Against the Death Penalty Day, a moment when human rights advocates draw attention to global calls to remove the death penalty and raise awareness about the conditions experienced by prisoners affected by death sentences.

- Advertisement -

The day was first mark 21 years ago by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The day is supported by many non-government organisatons including Amnesty International, and is endorsed by the United Nations, and the European Union.

This year’s events continue on from 2022 with a focus on the relationship between the use of the death penalty and torture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.

Advocates note that many types of torture and ill-treatment experienced by people when sentenced to death are numerous. Often physical or psychological torture has been applied to force confessions to capital crimes, and the death row phenomenon contributes to the long-term psychological decline of a person’s health.

People awaiting execution often endure harsh living conditions that contribute to their physical deterioration, and methods of execution can also cause exceptional pain. Further discriminations based on sex, gender, poverty, age, sexual orientation, religious and ethnic minority status and others can compound cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals sentenced to death.

While 112 countries have abolished the death penalty completely, there are still many nations that carry out executions. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States of America are the five leading countries that execute people.

Research from the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Wordwide suggests that there are 22,282 individuals known to be under the sentence of death at the end of 2022.

LGBTIQA+ people face particularly harsh treatment

A 2022 report noted that women and LGBTIQA+ individuals in detention face particularly harsh conditions and treatment. Many countries still retain a death penalty for homosexual acts including Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, parts of Nigeria, Saudia Arabia, Somalia, Pakistan, Uganda, Yemen and United Arab Emirates.

In some countries the laws are only applied to followers of the Islamic faith, while others have brought in moratoriums on the laws being used, but they remain on the country’s law books. Extra-judicial killings also have been reported in The Chechen Republic, Algeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, and several other countries.

The report State-Sanctioned Killing of Sexual Minorities: Looking Beyond the Death Penalty was published in 2021. Researchers Mai Santo and Chriostopher Alexander from Elos Justice at Monash University reported that at the time 69 countries around the globe continued to criminalise homosexuality, and eleven of them included the death penalty.

They also highlighted the Chechen Republic, who are accused of instigating a gay purge that led to the deaths of citizens, despite there not being a formal death penalty. The Chechen leadership has also regularly promoted the concept of honour killings within families if people discover a relative is gay.

Countries including Jordan and Iran also recognise the concept and have given reduced sentences, or completely exonerated people accused of murdering a gay family member.

There are also countries without stable governments where insurgent groups have reportedly killed people on the basis of their sexuality, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen were noted as locations where this is occurring.

The researchers also highlighted the allowance of ‘gay panic defence’, where people accused of murder are allowed to justify their actions claiming a fear that their victim was going to sexually proposition them. They highlight a 2018 case in the USA where a man received only a six-month prison sentence using the defence.

State enforced conversion therapy and sex reassignment procedures were also identified as leading to deaths.

Altogether the researchers found twenty-three countries in which sexual orientation—whether actual or perceived—may be the motivating factor in state-sanctioned killings.

Today Associate Professor Sato and Eleos Justice’s Deputy Director (Practice) Sara Kowal renewed their calls for action.

“The death penalty as currently practised renders it tantamount to torture, including the long anguish of awaiting executions in harsh conditions, followed by an execution marked by pain and suffering.

“Well over 90 per cent of global executions take place in Asia, which lags behind the global trend towards abolishing the death penalty.” they said.

“The explicit reference to the death penalty as an exception to the right to life in international human rights law has created a challenge in equating the death penalty with torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Beyond the doctrinal analysis of treaties, the idea that the death penalty does not constitute torture simply lacks persuasion.” the researchers said.

United Nations experts reiterate call for change

On Monday the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Alice Jill Edwards, reiterated their call for the complete abolition of the death penalty.

“Although international law permits the death penalty in very limited circumstances, in practice it is almost impossible for States to impose the death penalty while complying with human rights obligations, including the absolute and universal prohibition of torture.

“As a forensic doctor and a lawyer respectively, we have observed that the severe suffering and pain inflicted on a person, from sentencing to death, up until his or her execution has been increasingly found to be incompatible with the obligations to refrain from torture and ill-treatment.” they said.

The UN experts said that despite progress towards abolition there were still at least 825 people executed around the globe in 2022. The real number however is likely to much higher as many countries consider the number of people executed to be a state secret.

The European Union also shone a spotlight on countries that keep the number of executions a secret. In a statement they noted that in China it is estimated that the number of death sentences imposed, and executions carried out remained in the thousands last year, although the figures remain a state secret.

China’s secrecy around their use of the death penalty was also noted by the Australian researchers.

““China is the world’s top executing country, although official numbers remain a state secret.” Sato and Kowal said.

The United Nation’s Tidball-Binz and Edwards say that state sanctioned executions must only be for the most serious of crimes, those which have the extreme gravity of intentional killing. They argue that apply the death penalty for crimes involving blasphemy, adultery or drug related offences is unwarranted.

They also raised concern about the growing number of deaths penalty sentences being handed out for peaceful political protests.

“The imposition of the death penalty against persons exercising their right to peaceful political protest is a deeply worrying trend.” the two experts said.

The UN experts praised countries that had made progress towards removing the death penalty in the last twelve months including Zambia and Ghana who had abolished the death penalty via legislative leadership, and Malaysia who removed the mandatory call for the death penalty from its laws.

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner says the death penalty is still an issue for our country

Writing in The Strategist, the publication of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay says while the last execution in Australia was carried out 56 years ago, the issue is still an important one for our nation.

Finlay says it’s an important issue for Australians for two reasons, the first is that the universal abolition of the death penalty continues to be a key human rights issue, and Australia’s continued global leadership is strategically important.

The Human Rights Commissioner says we should be concerned that the number of people executed around the globe is increasing.

“We should be particularly concerned about the way that the death penalty is being both imposed and carried out.” Finlay wrote in the article created alongside research assistant Zahi Hansen.

“For example, one year after the death in custody of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, Iranian authorities have reportedly imposed death sentences on at least 26 individuals in connection with the subsequent protests and seven individuals have been executed. They included Mohammad Mehdi Karami, a 22-year-old karate champion, who was executed after reportedly being given less than 15 minutes to defend himself in court.” Finlay and Hansen highlighted.

The Human Rights Commission team also argue that it’s important to keep the discussion about the death penalty alive because Australia’s own values should never be taken for granted.

“When it comes to the death penalty, we need to ensure that Australians continue to understand exactly why the death penalty should never be used. This includes that it is an irrevocable punishment and for that reason alone has no place in an inevitably imperfect criminal justice system.

“It is too often used disproportionately against the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, is not an effective deterrent, and is irreconcilable with both human dignity and the right to life.” Finlay and Hansen wrote.

Graeme Watson 

You can support our work by subscribing to our Patreon
or contributing to our GoFundMe campaign.