Posted on 08/08/2006 11:52:27 AM PDT by lizol
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public Statement
AI Index: EUR 37/002/2006 (Public) News Service No: 208 8 August 2006
Poland goes backwards: No to the restoration of the death penalty Amnesty International is deeply concerned about statements by the President of Poland, Lech Kaczyñski on 28 July 2006 in which he called for the restoration of the death penalty in Poland and throughout Europe. President Kaczyñski argued on the Polish Public Radio Programme 1 that “countries that give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death". However, any society that uses the death penalty debases the value it places on human life and risks lowering itself to the moral equivalent of the murderer. A judicial system should not repeat the offence of the perpetrator.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases as a violation of fundamental human rights -- the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment -- and warns that it is irrevocable and can be inflicted on the innocent whilst it has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments. Those rights are recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, other international and regional human rights instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and national constitutions and laws.
In Europe, the trend is especially remarkable: the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE) now requires a commitment to abolition as a condition of entry into the organization, and the European Union (EU) has adopted a far-reaching policy governing the promotion of abolition in non-member states. At the October 1997 CoE Summit, Heads of Government, including all EU member states at that time and the new member states, called for universal abolition of the death penalty. Poland abolished capital punishment in 1997, following a moratorium on executions imposed in 1988.
Abolition of the death penalty is now a requirement of EU membership. This EU commitment was reaffirmed in December 2000 at the European Council Summit in Nice, with the solemn proclamation of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights. The Charter reaffirms the right of everyone to life and the prohibition of the death penalty (Article II-2). All the EU member states and candidate countries have acceded to Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty. In addition, EU member states are all signatories to Protocol 13 to the ECHR, concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, which was adopted in Vilnius in May 2002. This treaty explicitly bans the death penalty in all circumstances, including in war-time.
States are bound under international law to respect the provisions of treaties to which they are parties, and to do nothing to defeat the object and purpose of treaties which they have signed.
Amnesty International's latest information shows that 125 countries, which are over half the countries in the world, have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990, including Poland. Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. During the same period only four abolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty and two of them -- Nepal and Philippines -- have since abolished the death penalty again.
On 2 August, the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR), a minority party in Poland's governing coalition, announced a Europe-wide campaign to restore the death penalty and for a referendum on its reintroduction in Poland. LPR vice-president Wojciech Wierzejski called the forbid on the death penalty across the EU’s 25 member states “anachronistic".
Nevertheless, human rights violations cannot be justified by popular opinion. Many violations of human rights have been popular with the public, including lynching in the USA and massacres in Rwanda. The authorities of Poland should provide human rights leadership and not seek to have the public believe that the death penalty serves a useful purpose.
On 3 August, responding to these statements on behalf of the EU, the European Commission spokesman Stefaan de Rynck, said that “the death penalty is not compatible with European values". The EU Guidelines on death penalty state that “abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights". The Guidelines establish as an EU objective “to work towards universal abolition of the death penalty as a strongly held policy view agreed by all EU member states".
Poland being also a member of the CoE, René van der Linden, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE, wrote in an open letter to President Kaczyñski: “In our view, the death penalty has no place in the criminal justice system of any modern, civilised country". He added, “to suggest that its reintroduction could in any sense represent a positive development would be a direct attack on our common values, which are founded on respect for the basic human dignity of every person".
Amnesty International is likewise calling on the Polish authorities to respect its international obligations and uphold its commitments on the abolition of the death penalty.
Sounds like Poland's joining us in the real world. **** AI.
"Backwards"
Things were much better when the KGB et al rounded people up and killed them without trial.
I still await Amnesty International's very public and often repeated denunciation of terrorist bombings, terrorist missile attacks, terrorist beheadings, etc...
Support for the death penalty is just the natural result of violent crime. If you have no violent crime, you won't have much support for the death penalty. Europe is becoming more violent, and will ultimately re-adopt the death penalty.
Poland CAN Not reinstate the death penalty.
They will have a hard time seceding from the EU and they can't be part of the EU and still have the death penalty.
Case closed.
Moreover, as soon as the Pope says something (and he will be against it) the country will be against it.
The kooks in charge are looney. They are twin brothers and they are a problem. It is in no ones interest to encourage them.
Amnesty International ignores the real oppressive despots and goes after civil nation's nit picky offenses. They're about a credible as a Reuter's photographer.
They've got Africa and the Middle East where the killing of innocents abound, but instead they focus on the US and Poland?
The Ukraine did not stand up to the EU about the death penalty because they HOPE to get membership. Thus people who murder old ladies get sent to prison and get free meals for a few years and then are back on the streets.
Amnesty International is barbaric and so are the EU sophistos.
I thought AI was for American Idol and I couldn't figure out why they would be giving Poland what for.
It is my observation that the leaders of Poland do not represent the will of the people. Not sure how that happened, how people were put into office if that is the case, but my guess is that the people of Poland won't stand for this.
The saying when I was a kid, was: Put 18 Polocks in a room and you would have 27 political views and at least 30 political parties, the observation of a friend at a meeting of St Mikes.
I don't know enough Poles to really comment.
rural Poland is so diffent from Urban Poland that it is really like two different eras and continents.
The difference in the US or elsehwere in Europe is insignificant in comparison.
Imagine 18th century American rural meeting 21st century Amerian urban and that is what Poland is like.
Who is in the majority, I have no idea.
However, these guys are bad for the economy and that means at the end of the day, they are bad for everyone.
I read that they are fascist and homophobic. IMHO Poland should be expelled from the EU.
"They've got Africa and the Middle East where the killing of innocents abound, but instead they focus on the US and Poland?"
That's because they're not interested in Justice, only in conforming everyone to their own small political/world-view.
I read that they rigged both parliamentary and presidential elections. In fact the Poles hate them.
Facist is a difficult charge to prove. Homophobic is perhaps true, but hindered by law. Worst case they destroy Poland's (rather small) economy.
Not sure what the legal procedure for getting kicked out of the EU is. It probably is complicated.Naval gazing is still priority 1 for Europe. Maybe if we can ever sort out our unemployment problems we can worry about #2.
Bravo Poland!... see? of those jokes about them being stupid obviously are unfounded. POLAND gets it.
Anyone who has seen killers in this country glorified and elevated to almost a hero-status, I am sure has to wonder what a bunch of imbecils we have become in the U.S.
To see the "Alqaidos" actually including as part of their training, instructions on how to fool the Americans by using our judicial system to their advantage - our famous guarantees - it's enough to make you puke.
No being bounded by religion - I am an "independent" now :) - I can honestly say that there is a PLACE FOR THE DEATH PENALTY in any society. Those who have no remorse or compasion with the lives of others, should not get any considerations either. Now one thing is to be a pack of blood thirty mad dogs like those nuts in the middle east and another one is to let killers get away with taking the life of others... sometimes many, many lives. That is simply stupid?
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