Latest news
URGENT ACTION-TROY DAVIS SET TO BE EXECUTED SEPTEMBER 23RD
Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23rd, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court. We are asking everyone to take action NOW!!
Troy was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
On 16th July, 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stayed Troy Davis execution, stating that it would not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused. The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis's guilt will remain unresolved.
Please send an email to Governor Sonny Purdue at his website: http://gov.georgia.gov/00/gov/contact_us/0,2657,78006749_94820188,00.html
You can also contact the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board by emailing: Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us
To read more about this case and to help further visit Troy's website at:
http://www.troyanthonydavis.org/
Enthusiastic volunteers urgently needed - can you spare an hour or two?
We still have stalls booked at a number of green fairs and festivals in the London area over the coming weeks. So far we have had a really great response with members of the public taking leaflets, asking us lots of questions, signing campaign letters and wanting to get more involved. It's an excellent way to spread our anti-death penalty message and you will enjoy a fun day out in the sun!! Sound good? - then check out our events and get in touch!
North East Against the Death Penalty
This month sees the launch of a new forum aimed at anti-death penalty supporters in the North East of England. It is a great resource packed full of information on the death penalty world-wide and it also includes specific information relating to the death penalty in each of the U.S states. You can post information, read the latest news, find about events, current cases and share your experiences of writing to people on death row. There is also a place to list petitions,polls and chat to other members of the forum. To read about this and much, much more please check out: http://neadp.fullboards.com/
The death penalty in Taiwan
Just over 100 people have been executed in Taiwan over the last decade, and there are currently more than 100 people on death row there. But no-one has been executed since 2005, and the momentum towards abolition has increased in recent years. For more information visit: http://www.deathwatchinternational.org/bin_it.php.
Death Watch International focuses on U.S death penalty
This month, anti death penalty group Death Watch International turns the focus of its campaign for global abolition to the USA.
The US is one of only a handful of democracies among the developed nations to retain capital punishment - and the country voted against a recent United Nations' resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Last year it executed 42 people, and after a 7 month moratorium, executed William Lynd earlier this month.
Death Watch International has asked its supporters to write to the US’ Ambassador to the UN, His Excellency Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad, calling on the country to abandon the death penalty - and to underline their point by adding some (non-hazardous) trash to their message.
Death Watch International’s Director, Simon Shepherd, explained:
“As our campaign highlights, the death penalty is an outdated and barbaric practice which belongs in the trashcan of history. In retaining the death penalty the US finds itself in an increasingly small minority - we hope she will join the civilised world and abandon it.”
Visit www.deathwatchinternational.org and take action to bin the death penalty.
A rush to kill
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has signalled its support for the death penalty, several states are rushing to schedule executions. It's as if the court's approval of lethal injection has suddenly made it a health cure.
What ails the nation's flawed system of capital punishment won't be remedied, though, by tinkering with "the machinery of death," to use Justice Harry A. Blackmun's words.
States would be far wiser to continue their de facto moratorium on executions that held while the court considered this latest case. That would provide more time to examine and expose the many problems with capital punishment. Then, more states could follow New Jersey's sensible decision to get out of the execution business altogether.
That's what Justice John Paul Stevens wants, and no voice is more credible on the subject. Stevens backed reinstatement of the death penalty three decades ago, but last week he said it should be ended. He quoted the late Justice Byron White, who contended executions represent "the pointless and needed extinction of life with only marginal contributions" to society.
While a majority of the court last week deemed execution using lethal drugs a humane method, they did nothing to redress the fundamental unfairness and risks in applying the death penalty. Just the opposite, in fact.
The months leading up to the April 16 ruling on lethal injection had led to the delay of dozens of executions around the country. In effect, it was a national moratorium. That provided a prism through which the nation could examine flaws in the death penalty, including its falling disproportionately on poor and minority defendants. Even worse, dozens of death row inmates have later been proved innocent, many through DNA evidence.
As if to stack the deck against justice even further, in June the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. granted states leeway to remove jurors who expressed even slight doubts about the death penalty.
Another case under review - whether child rapists can be executed - could prompt the expansion of capital punishment for other non-homicide crimes, so this court clearly is headed the wrong way on the death penalty.
During the de facto moratorium, the New Jersey Legislature and Gov. Corzine replaced the death penalty with life-without-parole in first-degree murder cases. But now that reprieves have been voided for the three prisoners in other states who had contested the constitutionality of lethal injection, the rest of America appears ready to plunge back into executions.
That should not happen, especially in Pennsylvania, where work is under way to fund an Innocence Project to examine death row inmates' claims. That effort is sure to provide more evidence that the death penalty deserves to die.
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20080425_Editorial___Death_Penalty.html
-------------------------------------------
Raise money for Abolition UK simply by shopping online or searching the web!
Every time you use easysearch you’ll raise about 1p for every search you make. It doesn't sound like much, but the pennies soon mount up and an average surfer making just 10 searches a day could raise £25 a year - or more - just by switching to easysearch. Use easysearch every time you search the web and they’ll donate give 50% of the fees paid by their advertising sponsors to good causes such as ours.
You can also raise funds by shopping online with easyfundraising. Choose from over 500 of the UK's best-known retailers including many popular names such as NEXT, Amazon, Debenhams, John Lewis and HMV, and when you shop using the links on easyfundraising up to 15% from every purchase you make is donated to Abolition UK. It doesn't cost a penny extra to shop and raise funds for Abolition UK using easyfundraising and many retailers now give extra discounts when you buy online so you can even save money!
Just visit www.easysearch.org.uk and choose Abolition UK as your cause.
Abolitionuk.org - Images kindly provided by Scott Langley
