death penalty

Indonesia executes eight drugs smugglers

Turgon on April 28, 2015, 10:55 pm | Readers 732

I have blogged previously about the death penalty. It is only fair to state at the outset that I am fundamentally opposed to it. The BBC are reporting that despite a chorus of international pleas for clemency the Indonesian authorities have executed eight drugs smugglers. They included two Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (the ring leaders of the so called Bali nine) who were arrested 10 years ago as part of an operation involving the Australian police. The Australian …

Game of Thrones vs real life: 5 ways fact is worse than fiction

Soapbox on April 9, 2015, 5:14 pm | Readers 1267

Guest blog by Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research, Amnesty International The long-awaited fifth season of Game of Thrones begins on Sunday 12 April. Filmed in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere) and broadcast in 170 countries, the show shocks viewers and generates controversy with graphic violence, especially against women. Yet many aspects of real life around the world today are worse than the mythical Game of Thrones world of Westeros. [spoiler alert: reveals plot lines up to the end of season 2!] …

Mental health on death row

Patrick Corrigan on October 10, 2014, 9:58 am | Readers 625

This winter will mark 53 years since the last use of capital punishment in Northern Ireland. On 20 December 1961 Robert McGladdery became the last man to be hanged in Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol, for the murder of Pearl Gamble. The death penalty for murder was finally abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973. However, depending on where you live, you can be beheaded for charges of sorcery, stoned for adultery, or hanged for drug smuggling. This is 2014, and …

US death penalty states seek alternatives to lethal injection

Turgon on May 24, 2014, 10:20 am | Readers 69

I mentioned the debacle surrounding the execution of Clayton Lockett previously. The problem has been that lethal injection was seen as a humane way to end a condemned criminal’s life. It had the appearance of a medical procedure. Unfortuantely a combination of problems with drug choices and doses and more importantly the limited competence of the execution staff at gaining and maintaining intravenous access have led to a number of botched executions where death was not the at least outwardly …

Killing me softly

Turgon on April 30, 2014, 1:50 pm | Readers 96

At the start it is only fair to state that I am opposed to the death penalty. I respect those with a different opinion but I am clear that I do not support capital punishment. No one directly connected to me has ever been murdered so maybe I am naive and could change my mind but currently I think that would be unlikely. The USA has had another problem with an execution. In this case an inmate in Oklahoma started …

Death penalty-free world?

Patrick Corrigan on October 9, 2012, 5:00 pm | Readers 45

We’re winning! That’s not a claim you may hear too often from human rights activists, but in the case of the global struggle against the death penalty, it’s true. The momentum around the world is towards ending executions. The vast majority of countries have now abandoned the death penalty. On the eve of World Day against the Death Penalty, that’s worth noting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtLxXU0Gotk&feature=youtu.be Yet a small, and increasingly isolated, group of governments continue to put their own people to death. …

There is no reprieve from the grave: rejecting the DUP’s death penalty call

Patrick Corrigan on November 11, 2011, 4:41 pm | Readers 23

In the midst of a global / European economic meltdown, there are many pressing issues deserving of time for Commons debate. In the week of Remembrance Day, as ex-Serviceman Mark Mullins and his wife Helen commited suicide – apparently out of despair at their poverty and lack of adequate support from the State – perhaps it might be useful to debate why so many old soldiers are left to end up on the scrapheap, with inadequate benefits and inadequate mental health services. …

Making Europe a death penalty-free zone

Patrick Corrigan on October 10, 2011, 12:56 pm | Readers 16

Victims are informed they will be executed just moments before it happens. They are killed with a bullet to the back of the head. Their bodies are not handed over to their families. The burial site is kept secret. This is not a description of paramilitary disappearances in 1970s Northern Ireland. It is Europe today and it’s the state meting out the bullets in the head. While US capital punishment tends to get most of the headlines, state execution is …

Confessions of a US Supreme Court judge…

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2011, 10:10 pm | Readers 4

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player Retired Justice John Paul Stevens on the moderating effects of the US Supreme Court bench, and his ‘wrong decision’ regarding the US death penalty… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

If it is wrong to execute the innocent, isn’t it also wrong to kill the transparently guilty

Mick Fealty on September 22, 2011, 1:03 pm | Readers 21

I must admit, I have no view on whether Troy Anthony Davis was actually guilty or innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted, because I’ve not taken the time to read deeply enough into the case to come to a settled view. He certainly was of one mind and one voice from the moment he was sentenced to the moment the State of Georgia took his life late last night, Irish time, that he was innocent. I was …

World turns against death penalty

Patrick Corrigan on March 30, 2011, 1:39 pm | Readers 429

Fifty years ago only ten countries had completely abolished the death penalty. In 1977, the year Amnesty International took up the cause, just 17 countries were death penalty-free. Since then, there has been a sea change. As documented in Amnesty’s report on Death Sentences and Executions in 2010, published this week, 96 countries have now fully abolished capital punishment, while only 58 actively retain it. Of these, only 23 actually carried out executions in 2010. The remaining 43 nations have …