December 10, 2022: On the SACP
website there appear the names of four persons condemned to death and executed by firing squad in the SFRY in the period 1985-1992. They are:
1) Duaan Kosi, executed in Karlovac (SR Croatia) on January 29, 1987 for quadruple murder.1
2) Laslo Egete, executed in Subotica (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia) on July 29, 1988 for the murder and rape of a little girl.2
3) Laslo Tubi ak, executed in Novi Sad (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia) on August 8, 1989 for the murder of militiamen and for aggravated robbery.3
4) Johan Drozdek, executed near Sombor (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia) on February 14, 1992 for the murder and rape of a little girl. This was the last execution in the SFRY.4

Three more executions should be added to these four:
1) Ahmet Pa arizi (or Paqarizi), executed in Prizren (SAP Kosovo, SR Serbia) on 20 November 1987 for the murder of two militiamen.5
2) Malje Zeqiri, executed in an undisclosed location in SR Macedonia on March 29, 1988 for the murder and rape of his young daughter.
3) an anonymous multiple murderer, executed in an unknown location, probably in SR Serbia (SAP Vojvodina, Central Serbia or SAP Kosovo) in 1987.

Enrico Schiavo Lena,
independent researcher

Anyone who has observations to make on these data or is able to provide documented information on the anonymous person executed in 1987 is asked to please contact the following email addresses: enrico.schiavolena@studio.unibo.it and
srbija.protiv.smrtne.kazne@gmail.com
______
1 http://www.smrtnakazna.rs/en-gb/Osudjenik.aspx?id=6643. In the attached pdf. document it is erroneously stated that Kosi was shot in February 1987 (streljan u Karlovcu februara 1987) when in reality his execution took place on January 29, at dawn. See: https://www.24sata.hr/news /karlovacki-monstrum-zavezali-ga-prekrili-mu-oci-i-smaknuli-611032.
2 http://www.smrtnakazna.rs/Convict/tabid/296/id/6397/language/en-GB/Default.aspx. On the site both the date of Egete's death sentence ("1989") and that of his execution ("July 29, 1989") are wrong. The correct date appears in the pdf document below (nalazio se u pritvoru od 15.12.1985. do izvraenja s.k. 29.07.1988 u 04.00 asova.
3 http://www.smrtnakazna.rs/sr-latn-rs/Osudjenik.aspx?id=6398.
4 http://www.smrtnakazna.rs/sr-latn-rs/Osudjenik.aspx?id=6401.
5 Nova Hrvatska, 23/1987, p. 6: Strijeljan Albanac.
http://www.promacedonia.org/mak_enc/encyclopaedia_macedonica_2.pdf, p.1385, 2nd volume, M-Sh. The author of the article, prof. Gordana La~eti, explicitly confirmed to me in an email dated 14 May 2021 that the last executed person in SR Macedonia was Zeqiri, adding that the exact place of his execution did not emerge from the documents found, but the execution must have taken place outside prison in any case. In many sites (e.g. https://thinkportal2.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/makedonski-pedofil-osuden-na-smrt-so-strelane/) it is stated that Zeqiri was shot just a few days after his death sentence (February 1987), but this is completely incorrect given that such an emergency procedure was not permitted by Yugoslav law at the time.
Amnesty International Annual Report 1988, p. 226: Three people were executed, all for multiple murder. See: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/0001/1988/en/

October 10, 2020: 10 October 2020 is the 18^th World Day Against the Death Penalty.
This year also marks the 18^th anniversary of the death penalty abolition in Serbia.
More than two thirds of countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Only 20 countries carried out executions in 2019.

On the 26th February 2002, the Serbian Parliament struck the death penalty from the Penal Code. As in previous years, SACP delivered the following message to the members of Parliament:

The right to life is the most important human right.

On this day eighteen years ago you abolished the death penalty in Serbia.

Do not bring it back ever again!

You can read more about how did the Serbian Parliament abolished the death penalty in Serbia in 2002 on this page.

October 10, 2019: On the occasion of World Day against the Death Penalty, Serbia Against the Death Penalty, Torture and Other Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment and the Belgrade Centr5 for Human Rights organized a debate between the First and Third Belgrade High School pupils on the death penalty. The debate was judged by representatives of Open Communication.

October 10, 2019: Today marks the World Day against the Death Penalty. Although the number of states that have and execute the death penalty decreases every year, it is still widespread throughout the world. It is estimated that at least 700 executions are carried out annually in the world, not counting China, which is believed to have the highest number of death sentences handed down and executed annually.

                                Sources: KOLO-TV, Blic.

July 31, 2019: The Viciebsk Regional Court (Belarus) yesterday has pronounced death penalty to a man who committed double murder. This verdict is the second death sentence in Belarus in 2019. 

Sources: RFERL, Viasna. 

July 25, 2019: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its intent to adopt a new federal execution protocol and has issued death warrants setting execution dates for five federal death-row prisoners. In a July 25, 2019 press release, the DOJ said that Attorney General William P. Barr had directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt an addendum to the federal execution protocol specifying that federal executions will be carried out using the drug pentobarbital, in place of the prior three-drug protocol. He also directed the BOP to set three execution dates in the five-day span between December 9 and December 13, 2019 and two additional execution dates on January 13 and January 15, 2020, the 90th anniversary of the Martin Luther King's birth.

The federal death penalty was instituted in 1988. Three people have been executed under federal authority, with the last federal execution taking place in 2003.

       Sources: NYT, DPIC.

July 8, 2019: Lawmakers in American federal state of New Hampshire have decided, at the end of May this year, to abolish the death penalty, overriding governor’s veto. Ne Hampshire has not carried out the death penalty in many decades, but official abolishment is an important step forward. New Hampshire has become the 21st American federal state to abolish capital punishment. 

Source: WP

"We have moved beyond the idea of an eye or an eye and we believe in justice, not in revenge" Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, opens the 7th World Congress Against

7th World Congress Against The Death Penalty - High-Level Conference: - opening ceremony with - Pavel TELIKA (ALDE,CZ), EP Vice-President - Federica MOGHERINI, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the EC - Didier REYNDERS, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Kingdom of Belgium - Pascale BAERISWYL, State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Swiss Confederation - Audun HALVORSEN, State Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Norway - Raphaël CHENUIL-HAZAN, ECPM ("Ensemble contre la peine de Mort") - Aminata NIAKATE, ECPM - Video Message of His Holiness Pope Francis - Family photo

source: remarker.media

November 30, 2017: Since 2002, the Community of Sant’Egidio has organized the International Day of Cities for Life, Cities against the Death Penalty, which takes place every year on November 30 – on the anniversary of the first abolition of the death penalty in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on November 30, 1786.
There are more than 2000 cities in the world that declared themselves "Cities for Life" and are committed to the abolition of the death penalty. The World Day of Cities for Life / Cities against the Death Penalty, that takes place on November 30 each year, is the largest contemporary planetary mobilization in order to indicate a higher and more civil form of justice, able to finally renounce to the death penalty.
The map of the Cities for Life.
Belgrade took part in this action three times: 2007, 2012 and 2013.

November 28, 2017: Before 1789 : San Marino (1468), Lichtenstein (1785).
In 19thcentury : Finland (1825), Portugal (1846), Netherlands (1860), Belgium (1863), Vatican (1870), Norway (1876), Denmark (1892).
In 20thcentury, before 1945 : Sweden (1910), Switzerland (1940), Andora and Malta (1943).
In 20th century, before 1990 : Italy (1947), Austria (1950), Ire and (1954), Slovenia (1957), Cyprus (1962), United Kingdom (1964), Greece (1972), Spainand Bosna-Herzegovina (1975), France (1977), Germany (inDDR1981,for treason(captainWerner Teske) and 1972, for murder and rape of two boys (Hans Erwin Hagedorn); in FDR 1949), Turkey (1984), Croatia (1987), Macedonia, Poland and Hungary (1988), Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovakia (1989).
In 20thcentury, after 1990 : Estonia (1991), Serbia (1992), Albaniaand Lithuania (1995), Latvia (1996), Ukraine (1997), Russia (1999).
In 21stcentury : Belarus (2017).
source: medias-presse

NB: In certain traditionally abolitionist countries, death sentences were carried out during and shortly after WWII, mostly on war criminals and collaborationists. In Norway, there were 19 executions during and 37 after the war, the last one in 1948. In Finland, 550 during the war, the last one in 1944. In Belgium, 242 during and after the war, the last one in 1950. In Denmark, 46 after the war, the last one in 1950. In Netherlands, an unknown number after the war, the last one in 1952.

October 21, 2017: Kala Shah Kaku, Pakistan - Malak al-Maut (the angel of death) was once, it is said by Islamic theologists, one of God's favoured angels; a loyal servant who was entrusted with separating people's souls from their bodies, when their time came.
To the righteous, it is said, the angel of death appears in a friendly form, a companion come to ease one's passage to the other side.
For those who have sinned, however, the angel appears as a terrifying beast, a demon come to wreak divine judgment and wrench their souls away to eternal damnation.
For most prisoners on Pakistan's death row, he appears as Sabir Masih.

A family legacy
Since 2006, Masih has been one of three executioners in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, the capital of Punjab, the country's most populous province. Although he says that he does not keep track, he claims to have hanged more than 250 people since he started work.
Masih comes from a family of executioners. His father, Sadiq, hanged prisoners for 40 years before retiring in 2000. Masih's grandfather and his brothers all did the same work, too. Indeed his granduncle, Tara Masih, hanged Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first elected prime minister, in 1979.
Tara had to be flown from Bahawalpur to Lahore because the executioner at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail - Sabir's father Sadiq - refused to hang the popular leader.
As a child, Sabir Masih always knew he would end up in the family business.
"I knew that this was a family profession," the 33-year-old explains, sitting cross-legged in his maternal uncle's simple home, about 25km outside of Lahore.
He was 22 the first time that he killed a man, a convicted murderer whose name he cannot recall.
"I didn't know anything at that time. I had just seen a man hanged once in front of me," he says. "I saw [my teacher] tie a noose once, the second time I did it myself.
"When I pull the lever, I don't really think about it. You pull the lever, the man falls," he says. "My focus is on the sign, from the jail superintendent."
It was his first day on the job.
Within eight months, he says proudly, he had already executed 100 men, "completing his century", as he puts it.
In 2008, however, Masih's work came to an abrupt halt, as the newly elected Pakistan People's Party government placed an unofficial moratorium on executions. That measure remained in place until December 2014, when armed men stormed a Peshawar school, killing more than 150 people, most of them children.
The attack shocked the nation, and the government quickly lifted the moratorium, as a warning to members of armed groups such as the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, and others who had attacked both state and civilian targets in a war that has lasted since 2007.
Within a matter of hours, Masih was en route to Faisalabad from his native Lahore, to keep an appointment with two men convicted of "terrorism".
"There were news reporters everywhere," he says, recalling the crowd outside his home when the moratorium was lifted. "I sent a friend twice to go out and check … then I slipped out and went to Faisalabad."Since then, Pakistan has executed at least 471 people, according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Last year, it ranked fifth on Amnesty Internationl's list of worldwide executioners, putting at least 87 people to death. Almost all of those cases were in Punjab province, with Masih carrying out many of them.
"Why should I keep track? The jail keeps records. They have books to keep track of the black warrants," he says.
Masih takes an uncomplicated approach to the question of whether the death penalty is justified.
"This is the law of our country, what am I meant to feel about it?" he asks. "It is nothing, it is just a job."
Further probing on the subject seems to elicit annoyance, a mild irritation at questions he thinks miss the point of what he does for a living."It's nothing. Only that minute or half a minute is urgent, when they are bringing the convict to be hanged. Other than that, it's simple," he says, detailing how he measures out the length of rope and ties the knot based on the height and weight of the convict.
Sometimes, he concedes, he gets it wrong.
"You'll see a person's body torn apart. I've done it many times."
Masih speaks at an odd rhythm, as if just slightly out of time with the world around him. As he picks at his yellowing teeth with a matchstick, he complains that people seem to make more of his job than is warranted.
"For the person who is observing it being done, it seems a huge thing to do ... but it's easy, it's not a big deal for me."
"It's nothing," he repeats throughout our conversation.
Fair trial concerns, however, have dogged Pakistan's justice system, and specifically its use of the death penalty, for years.
Last year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted two brothers, Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar, of murder, after they had spent more than 10 years on death row. The only problem? Qadir and Sarwar had both been executed at Bahawalpur's central jail in October 2015.
Masih had pulled the lever.
"I didn't feel anything," he says, of when he heard the news of the acquittals. "If anyone is going to feel tension about it, it would be the jail superintendent, or the deputy, or the chief minister. I didn't issue the black warrants, did I?
"It's nothing."In a sense, Masih concedes, he sees prisoners at their most intimate, in a moment where there are no longer any pretences.
"Yes, I see a face of theirs [that others do not]," he says. "At that time, they are crying. Either from the inside or the outside."
Some, he says, ask for forgiveness - from him, from the jail superintendent, from anyone who will listen."They're finished, from the inside. The convict who has done it, they know that they have to accept their fate."
Others, however, exult in their deeds.
One execution that Masih says will always stay with him was that of two men convicted for facilitating a suicide attack on then Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf in 2004. They were hanged in December 2014.
"They came to me 12 minutes before their hanging. They were raising slogans, and greeting each other happily as if they were at Eid prayers. They said that they were bound for heaven," he says.
"They accepted that they had done everything that they had been accused of. They were happy about it."
What, then, does Masih see as the difference between himself and those men? Or, rather, between himself and all of the murderers that he has executed over the years? Is there one?
"What I do, it is different," he says, emphatically. "I am killing people based on the law. The murderer has killed by their choice, but I am not killing by my own choice. On my side, I have the whole state, all the way to the presient. I have not picked the convict to kill.
"It's nothing."

source: Al Jazeera

October 8, 2017: This year, two World Days – the World Day against the Death Penalty and the World Mental Health Day – will be celebrated together in a single event:
PANEL DISCUSSION followed by THEATRE and FILM inserts
Panel participants:
Ivan Jankovi, Miloš Jankovi, Vladimir Jovi i Sandra Petruši
Theatre inserts directed by Sandra Rodi Jankovi
Actors
Caci Mihajlovi, Daniel Kova evi i Katarina Dimitrijevi
The event is supported by four NGOs:
Center for Cultural Decontamination (CZKD)
Serbia Against Capital Punishment (SACP)
International Aid Network (IAN)
Center for Rehabilitation and Prevention of Torture (CRPT)
Come and participate!
Time and place: October 10 at 6 p.m., Center for Cultural Decontamination, Bir aninova 21, Belgrade
ADMISSION IS FREE, but for your money you get TWO World Days (and the sympathies of FOUR NGOs)!

September 24, 2017:Two African nations—The Gambia and Madagascar—acting in connection with the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, have taken major steps committing themselves to the irreversible abolition of the death penalty. 
On Thursday, September 21, shortly after making his first address to the United Nations, The Gambia's President Adama Barrow signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty at the 72nd General Assembly of the United Nations, committing his nation to death penalty abolition. For The Gambia, this is the first step in abolishing the death penalty. The small West African nation last carried out an execution in 2012, when nine prisoners were executed by firing squad. Those executions, the first in 31 years, had been widely criticized. 
Also on September 21, at a General Assembly event devoted to the treaty, Madagascar completed the ratification process by depositing the instruments of ratification with the United Nations’ General Secretary. The Gambia and Madagascar bring the total number of signed parties to 85. Madagascar, an island nation off the Southeast coast of the African continent, signed the Second Optional Protocol at the 67th U.N. General Assembly in September 2012 and abolished the death penalty by law in January 2015. The nation of 20 million has not executed anyone since 1958.

source: DPIC

September 19, 2017: Yesterday evening, the international Alliance for Torture-Free Trade was launched during the United Nations General Assembly week in New York. Serbia is one of the countries that have joined the Alliance. The initiative – a joint effort by the European Union, Argentina and Mongolia, with a total of 58 participating countries – aims to stop the trade in goods used to carry out the death penalty and commit torture.
International law bans torture in all circumstances. Despite this, tools of death and pain are still traded across the globe. These include batons with metal spikes, electric shock belts, grabbers that seize people while electrocuting them, chemicals used to execute people and the forced injection systems that go with them.
“These products serve no other purpose than inflicting terrible pain and killing people. Now, we are taking concrete action to shut down this despicable trade. I am thrilled that so many countries around the globe have signed up to the joint Declaration and joined this Alliance. By standing together, we demonstrate that we will not tolerate this trade any longer,” said European Union Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström.
Today’s launch saw 58 countries from all over the world – Africa and the Americas, Europe and Asia – adopting a joint political declaration. By signing up to the Alliance, countries have agreed to four action points:
-Take measures to control and restrict exports of these goods;
-Equip customs authorities with appropriate tools. The Alliance will set up a platform to monitor trade flows, exchange information, and identify new products;
-Make technical assistance available to help countries with setting up and implementing laws to ban this trade;
-Exchange practices for efficient control and enforcement systems.
Partly as a consequence of tougher rules in the EU and elsewhere, drugs for lethal injections and torture goods have become more difficult to get and more expensive to buy. However, producers and traders of these goods try to circumvent such laws, so the more countries that commit themselves to banning these exports, the more effective efforts will be to put an end to the trade. The Alliance for Torture-Free Trade is a way to take specific steps to stop the trade in such goods globally, making it significantly more difficult to obtain them.
For more information about the Alliance, go to http://torturefreetrade.org

source: europa.rs

August 28, 2017: A white supremacist convicted of racially motivated murders three decades ago in Florida has been executed by lethal injection.
Mark Asay is the first white man in state history to be executed for killing a black victim, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The 53-year-old had been found guilty of two 1987 murders in Jacksonville. 
It was the first time a new drug cocktail was used.
A jury found that Asay shot his victims - Robert Lee Booker, a black man, and Robert McDowell, 26, a white-Hispanic man - on the same night after making racist comments.
Prosecutors said that Asay had hired McDowell, who was dressed as a woman, for sex, and shot him after discovering his gender.
Since the state reinstated death sentences in 1976, 20 black men have been executed for killing white victims, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
His execution began with him being given etomidate, an anaesthetic never before used for a US execution, which will replace midazolam, a drug abandoned over fears that it was causing unnecessary suffering.
Concerns were raised after a number of prisoners appeared to suffer agonising deaths, eventually leading Florida to abandon the drug in January.
He was given two other drugs to paralyse him and stop his heart - rocuronium bromide and potassium acetate.
However, one dissenting judge warned the allowance of an unproven cocktail "jeopardised Asay's fundamental constitutional rights and treated him as the proverbial guinea pig".
In an interview with a local television station, Asay had said he did not want to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
The inmate - who had white supremacist tattoos - admitted killing Mr McDowell, but denied the other murder.

source: BBC

August 11, 2017: A semi-official Iranian news agency is reporting that a young Iranian man who was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death as a child, has been executed.
Amnesty International called Thursday's execution of Alireza Tajiki "shameful." Tajiki was 15 years old when he was arrested six years ago for murder and sodomy.
The Thursday report by Ana.ir quoted general prosecutor of Shiraz city Ali Salehi as saying the execution took place Thursday morning and was "legal." He said Tajiki had a "fair and just" prosecution.
Salehi said Iran's Supreme Court upheld the execution following an appeal.
Under Iranian law, murder, rape, sodomy and armed rubbery are punishable by death.

source: NYT

August 2,2017:Authorities of Belarus cannot abolish the death penalty in the country, since the people voted for its preservation at the referendum, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said. The Belarusian president, at the same time, expressed confidence that his country would gradually come to the solution of this issue. "We are called to abolish the death penalty. We are hearing the proposals. But not a single country can oppose the people's will, the overwhelming part of which voted at the referendum for its application," Lukashenko said at the official opening of the annual session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Minsk.
Belarus is the only country in Europe where the capital punishment is applied. In 1996, the issue of death penalty abolition was put in Belarus to a national referendum, and almost 80.5 percent of its participants voted for its preservation. The existence of the death penalty is called the main obstacle to the restoration of Belarus in the status of a special guest in Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

source: Sputnik

20. jul 2017:There are polished floors, clean surroundings and symbolic statues.But this place is far from peaceful and there’s a reason why it’s known as the Tokyo death house.
This is where Japan hangs its criminals in secrecy so tight that not even the convicted know when their time is up.
Last week’s execution of two convicted murderers has once again cast light on the country’s practise of putting people to death, a method labelled cruel and inhumane by human rights groups.
Nishikawa, 61, was convicted of killing four female bar owners in western Japan in 1991, while Sumida, 34, was sentenced to death for killing a female colleague in 2011 and dismembering her body.
The government remained unrepentant despite calls from activists to stop the hangings.
“Both are extremely cruel cases in which victims were deprived of their precious lives on truly selfish motives,” Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda said.
“I ordered the executions after careful consideration.”

INSIDE CHAMBER OF DEATH

source: News AU

July 1, 2017: The Hungarian Government and European Union are trying to stop the execution of a Virginia inmate.
William Morva is set to be executed on July 6.
Morva was convicted of killing Montgomery County Sheriff's Deputy, Corporal Eric Sutphin, and security guard Derrick McFarland during a prison escape in 2006.
His lawyers filed a clemency petition Tuesday.
They said jurors did not know Morva suffered from a severe mental illness.
His attorneys want to commute his sentence to life in prison without parole.
Both Hungary and the European Union have reached out to Governor McAuliffe to stop the execution.
According to the Mercy for Morva Group, he is a Hungarian-American dual national.

source: WSLS

June 29, 2017: Nick Yarris served 22 years in solitary confinement on death row for a crime he didn’t commit.
He was stabbed, strangled, savagely beaten and came face-to-face with some of the most notorious serial killers America has ever produced, all the while knowing he was innocent.
But, despite all this, despite being dismissed as a rapist and murderer, and feeling so low he asked a judge if he could be put to death, he considers himself ‘extremely lucky’.
‘Look at the physical features,’ he told metro.co.uk from his home near Yeovil in Somerset, as he prepared to travel to Los Angeles to work on a biopic of his life.
‘[I] faced the death penalty but got out, acclimatised to society, overcame Hepatitis C, and went on to stand next to some of the most brilliant actors in the world performing in the Colosseum in Rome.’
‘Guess what? There are 160 other men who have been proven innocent off death row. Not all of them are getting the same play.
‘A lot of them go and die in abstract, terrible ways and they don’t get anything.’
It’s true that the 56-year-old’s case has been the subject of widespread coverage since his release from prison in Pennsylvania in 2004 after DNA proved his innocence.
He estimates that he read around 9,400 books as he educated himself about the law so that he could prove himself innocent through DNA testing.
Despite the glaring injustices of his trial and the barriers he faced in his bid for freedom, it took him more than two decades to prove to he was not guilty.
The happy childhood he recalled, living with his parents and five siblings in a Philadelphia suburb was shattered when he was knocked out and raped at the age of seven.
He never told his parents and the trauma of the attack saw his behaviour worsen and, as a teenager, he turned to drink and drugs.
He was arrested in 1981, aged 20, for the attempted kidnap and murder of a police officer after being pulled over in a stolen car.
The charge was overblown and false and he would later be acquitted, however, Yarris’ drug-addled mind decided that the only way he would get off was to offer the police a bargaining chip.
He decided to tell officers he knew who murdered a woman called Linda Mae Craig, whose case he had seen covered in the papers.
Giving them the name of a man he believed to be dead, and therefore hard to trace, his lie was exposed when officers were able to track him down.
The police then decided to charge Yarris with the crimes instead, and despite having a number of alibis, he was convicted of rape and murder and put on death row.
He was sent to the notorious Huntingdon State Correctional Institute just outside of Pittsburgh and placed in a disciplinary unit where talking was banned.
Three years after his conviction, he was back in the headlines again, after escaping during a prison transfer.
However, after months on the run, he handed himself into authorities in Florida, where he was placed in a cell next to serial killer Ted Bundy, as he waited to be transferred to a unit in Pennsylvania.
But instead of the key to freedom he was hoping for, it led to years of heartbreak and frustration, including when a batch of samples burst open in a laboratory rendering the evidence useless.
Ironically, the application that triggered his eventual release, came at Yarris’ lowest moment.
Not able to face fighting for his freedom any longer, he took the unusual decision of writing to a judge to ask to be put to death in 2002.
Before facilitating his request the judge ordered that all DNA and evidence remaining in the case should be tested.
Remarkably, DNA traces of two unknown men were found in Linda Mae Craig’s car and on her clothes.
The 33-year-old’s killer has still not been found and Yarris has received compensation, although he says it ‘feels like pity money’.
He said he wasn’t able to sleep for a year after his release until he put his experiences down in the book Fear of 13, which was released in paperback this month.
He is still able to meticulously recall his experiences, an ability he puts down to years of solitude.
He moved to England after visiting to speak before parliament in 2004 and can count St Albans, Stevenage, Hastings and Lincolnshire amongst his former homes.
He lives with his partner Laura and her two children, who have flown out with him to LA as work begins on a film of his life directed by Alejandro Monteverde.

source: Metro

June 27, 2017: At an international death penalty conference in Washington, DC, hosted by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the European Union strongly renewed its call for a global end to the use of capital punishment. In his opening remarks for the conference, David O'Sullivan, the European Union's Ambassador to the United States, expressed optimism about recent declines in the use of the death penalty in the United States and said "the abolition of capital punishment ... would put the U.S. on the right side of history." 
On June 22-24, 2017, government representatives, non-governmental organizations, abolitionists, and death-penalty experts from around the world gathered on the campus of Catholic University in Washington, DC for a conference on the state of the death penalty throughout the world and a celebration of the World Coalition's 15th anniversary. 
The 2017 conference looked in-depth at the relationship between poverty and capital punishment, with speakers from India, Nigeria, and the U.S. describing the pervasive impact of poverty on crime, death-penalty charging practices, and access to qualified defense counsel and the courts. 
Other sessions included a panel of seven U.S. death-row exonerees, who discussed their cases and the inherent risk of sentencing innocent people to death.

source: DPIC

June 18, 2017: An Egyptian court handed down a preliminary judgment condemning 31 Islamists to death for their part in the 2015 assassination of the country's top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat.
The death sentences still have to be referred to the chief Islamic legal authority, the grand mufti, who will issue a non-binding opinion required by Egyptian law in the case of capital punishment.
Barakat was killed in a car bomb attack on his convoy in Cairo on June 29, 2015. Egypt blamed the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood "in coordination" with Gaza-based Hamas militants for the attack, though both have denied involvement.
Barakat was the highest-ranking state official to be killed by militants in a spate of attacks since the 2013 ouster by the military of President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader who was Egypt's first freely elected president. Morsi was removed from power after mass protests against his rule.
Saturday's judgment is due to be reaffirmed on July 22, when the court will also issue its verdict on the 36 other defendants in the case. Fifteen of the 67 defendants in the case are at large.

source: DW

May 25, 2017: Iran has demonstrated its utter disregard for children’s rights by executing a man arrested for a crime committed while he was 16 years old in a brazen violation of international human rights law, said Amnesty International.
The man, who has been identified in state media only by the name “Asqar”, was sentenced to death by public hanging nearly 30 years ago. He was executed at Karaj’s Central Prison near Tehran on 23 May 2017.
“With this execution, the Iranian authorities’ repeated claims to the UN and EU that they are moving away from the use of death penalty against juvenile offenders ring horrifically hollow. 
It is absolutely appalling that two decades after it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran continues to display such a chilling disregard for children’s rights,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
This is the third execution this year of someone arrested as a child in Iran.

May 7, 2017: Belarus is believed to have carried out its first execution of the year.
Homel resident Syarhey Vostrykau, who was found guilty of rapes and murders involving extreme brutality, was most likely executed last month on either April 13 or April 29, the Belarusian human rights center Vyasna said in a report posted on its website.
Judges in the regional court in the southeastern city of Homel found Vostrykau, 33, guilty in May of last year of kidnapping, raping, and murdering two women in 2014 and 2015. The case was heard behind closed doors.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe which still applies the death penalty. The execution is carried out by firing squad.
The European Union issued a statement reaffirming "its strong opposition to capital punishment in all circumstances."
"The continued application of the death penalty goes counter to Belarus's stated willingness to engage with the international community, including the European Union, on the matter and to consider the introduction of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty," EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a May 6 statement."The European Union urges Belarus...to commute the remaining death sentences and to introduce without delay a moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition," Kocijancic said.
Belarus carried out four executions last year. Before 2016, an execution had not been carried out under the Belarusian legal system since November 2014.

source: Radio Free Europe

May 5, 2017: The German government says it won't allow Turks living in Germany to vote in a possible referendum on reviving the death penalty in Turkey. President Erdogan is contemplating reviving capital punishment.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Friday that letting such a referendum go ahead in Germany was "politically inconceivable" because it "so clearly contradicts our basic law and European values."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan floated plans to bring back the death penalty following his narrow victory in last month's referendum to expand his powers.
Under Turkish law, Turkish nationals living abroad are eligible to vote in referendums and elections in Turkey. But Germany's Foreign Ministry has pointed out that all sovereign actions by other countries on its territory, such as referendums, first need to be approved by the federal government.
Germany allowed polling stations for Turkish nationals to vote in the April referendum on the presidential executive. No application for a referendum on the death penalty has yet been made by Ankara. If such a request were to be made, Seibert said the government would likely use its legal resources to prohibit a vote.
His comments echoed earlier remarks from the leading Social Democrat candidate in this year's federal elections, Martin Schulz. He told news magazine "Der Spiegel" that "we cannot allow voting in Germany on an instrument that contradicts our values and our constitution."

source: DW

April 26, 2017: The 47-nation Council of Europe calls for an end to the death penalty after a series of executions in the US state of Arkansas.
After 12 years not carrying out the death penalty Arkansas has now executed three people in a matter of days.
This is deeply disturbing, and goes against the global trend towards abolition of this inhumane and outdated punishment. We urge the United States, as an observer to the Council of Europe, to refrain from further executions.
Through the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of Europe has succeeded in creating a death penalty-free zone covering some 820 million people. Belarus, not a Council of Europe member, is the only European country still to execute the death penalty.

source: COE

April 20, 2017: Arkansas has executed an inmate for the first time in nearly a dozen years as part of its plan to execute several inmates before a drug expires April 30, despite court rulings that have already spared three men.
Ledell Lee's execution was the first in the state since 2005. He was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m.
Lee, 51, was put on death row for the 1993 death of his neighbor Debra Reese, whom Lee struck 36 times with a tire tool her husband had given her for protection.
wo more inmates are set to die Monday, and one on April 27. Another inmate scheduled for execution next week has received a stay.
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Lee's execution less than an hour before his death warrant was set to expire at midnight, rejecting a round of last-minute appeals the condemned inmate's attorneys had filed. An earlier ruling from the state Supreme Court allowing officials to use a lethal injection drug that a supplier says was obtained by misleading the company cleared the way for Lee's execution.

source: AP

April 20, 2017: The European Union says that if Turkey moves to reinstate the death penalty it would dash any hope that it could join the bloc. 
EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved "from rhetoric to action on the issue of the death penalty (it) would be clear signal that Turkey does not want to be a member of the European family.'' 
He said that the death penalty is more than a red line. "This is the reddest of all red lines.'' 
On Monday, Erdogan renewed suggestions that Turkey could hold referendums on its bid to join the European Union and on reinstating the death penalty.

source: The Standard

April 11, 2017: At least 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries in 2016. In 2015 Amnesty International recorded 1,634 executions in 25 countries worldwide - a historical spike unmatched since 1989.
Most executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan – in that order.
China remained the world’s top executioner – but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China is unknown as this data is considered a state secret; the global figure of at least 1,032 excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China.
Excluding China, 87% of all executions took place in just four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan.
For the first time since 2006, the USA was not one of the five biggest executioners, falling to seventh behind Egypt. The 20 executions in the USA was the lowest in the country since 1991.
During 2016, 23 countries, about one in eight of all countries worldwide, are known to have carried out executions. This number has decreased significantly from twenty years ago (40 countries carried out executions in 1997). Belarus, Botswana, Nigeria and authorities within the State of Palestine resumed executions in 2016; Chad, India, Jordan, Oman and United Arab Emirates –all countries that executed people in 2015 − did not report any executions last year.
141 countries worldwide, more than two-thirds, are abolitionist in law or practice.

source: AI

April 6, 2017: Over the course of 10 days in April, Arkansas plans to put to death 8 inmates. The state code requires that no fewer than 6 "respectable citizens" be present at each execution. There's one problem: It's having a hard time finding enough volunteers to witness them. The people who are allowed to witness an execution vary by state, said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. Typically, family members of the inmate and relatives of the victims are present, he said. Sometimes, a state requires that lay people who have no stake in the case are present, too. That could be a member of the media or a citizen witness, such as in Arkansas. "It's not natural watching the intentional taking of a human life," he said. "It has an emotional impact on people." The 8 death row inmates will be put to death between April 17 and April 27, a move that death penalty opponents have called "unprecedented." The series of execution has been attributed to the state's soon-to-be-expire supply of midazolam, a contentious drug that's been blamed for a spate of botched executions in recent years. The executions would mark the 1st time since 2005 that Arkansas has put an inmate to death.

source: CNN

April 2, 2017: The Kobe District Court on March 22 sentenced a 42-year-old man to death over the killing of five people in Hyogo Prefecture in 2015, dismissing lawyers' arguments that he was mentally ill.
Tatsuhiko Hirano, 42, was handed the death penalty after being convicted of fatally stabbing five neighbors with a survival knife in two separate homes on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, on March 9, 2015. The victims, three women and two men, were aged between 59 and 84.
Hirano had a history of medical treatment for a psychiatric disorder, and in the trial he denied the allegations against him, saying that he was "manipulated by agents with magnetic waves."

source: Mainichi

March 22, 2017: On 17 March 2017, 32-year-old Aliaksei Mikhalenya was sentenced to death by the Gomel Regional Court of Belarus for two murders committed with particular cruelty. Although Aliaksei Mikhalenya has the right to appeal the sentence in Supreme Court in Belarus, the appeal court rarely commutes death sentences and the chances to get the Presidential pardon are illusionary, as revealed in the joint FIDH-HRC report "Death penalty in Belarus: Murder on (Un)Lawful Grounds". As the report demonstrates, throughout investigation and trial, self-incrimination is used by the prosecution as the main evidence of guilt, whilst the right to an effective legal defence is systematically violated. In general, the application of death penalty in Belarus is accompagnied by severe human rights violations at each stage of the judicial proceedings and during detention.

source: FIDH

March 19, 2017: In the build up to the referendum, the Turkish President promised he will introduce the death penalty in a campaign that has caused a diplomatic furore.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan vowed on Saturday that he will reinstate capital punishment “without hesitation”, ahead of the referendum on 16 April that could lead to a radical extension of his powers.
Speaking at a televised rally in Canakkale, the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) promised that he would sign a bill on the death penalty, stating: "I believe, God willing, that after the 16 April vote, parliament will do the necessary concerning your demands for capital punishment".
His controversial comments come over a decade after Turkey completely abolished the death penalty in its efforts to join the European Union.

source: Independent

March 8, 2017: The Philippine House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill to restore the death penalty by hanging, lethal injection or firing squad for drug offenses despite opposition from the influential Roman Catholic church and human rights groups. The House said 216 members approved the proposed legislation, 54 voted against it and one abstained Tuesday, bringing nearer to reality President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise to restore capital punishment for hardcore criminals, especially drug traffickers. The death penalty could have been applicable for several crimes, including economic plunder in a country rife with corruption scandals, under earlier House bill versions but lawmakers later agreed to allow it only for drug offenses, including production and trafficking.
Proponents argue the death penalty would help combat the drug menace, which Duterte has elevated to a national security threat. His anti-drug crackdown has left thousands of drug suspects dead since he took office in June. Opponents led by the dominant Catholic church held an anti-death penalty rally attended by more than 10,000 people in Manila three weeks ago. More than 200 activists protested against the death penalty outside the House as lawmakers voted on the bill Tuesday.

source: AP

February 16, 2017: As many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian prison near Damascus, Amnesty International has said, accusing the government of a "policy of extermination".
Titled "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison," Amnesty's damning report is based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees, and judges. It found that at least once a week between 2011 and 2015, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells for arbitrary trials, beaten, then hanged "in the middle of the night and in total secrecy." Most of the victims were civilians believed to be opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
An investigation by the United Nations last year accused Assad's government of a policy of "extermination" in its jails.

source: Al Jazeera

February 13, 2017: Morocco's religious authorities have ruled that people who leave Islam should not be punished with the death penalty, reversing its previous ruling on apostasy.
The High Religious Committee decided last week to backtrack on its 2012 ruling that Muslims who change their religion should be put to death.
"The most accurate understanding and the most consistent with the Islamic legislation… is that the killing of the apostate is meant for traitors of the group, the one disclosing secrets," the committee said in a document, according to local media.
The religious authority, which in charge of issuing fatwas, argued that apostates during the infancy of Islam were the people who betrayed Muslims at a time when they were at war with rebellion in the Arabian peninsula.
The committee cited an example when the Prophet Muhammad allowed a Muslim who had renounced his faith to return to the Quraish tribe, which was the main enemy of the fledgling Islamic nation at the time.

source: The New Arab

January 31, 2017: Short films and videos can be useful conversation starters for teachers, educators, facilitators or anyone wishing to learn more about human rights. Here are some freely available films about the death penalty.
There may be content that is unsuitable for some audiences, therefore we recommend you watch each clip in full to check that its suitable for the audience before you use it in an educational setting.

1. Amnesty International: Death to the death penalty

This powerful advertising film replicates various scenes of execution using wax figures that melt and leaving the Amnesty candle standing unscathed.

2. AJ+: What if the death penalty disappeared in America?

What are the practical implications of getting rid of capital punishment in the US? This video explains the economic benefits of getting rid of the death penalty, as well as outlining the fact that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime, is disproportionately applied to ethnic minorities and that rulings can get it wrong – innocent people have been killed by the system.

3. Amnesty International: The death penalty in 2015

Every year, we produce a report on the number of known executions around the world, and where they’re happening. 2015 saw the highest number of executions for a quarter of a century.

4. Vice: Should there be a death penalty?

Vice News asked people from around the world about their views on the death penalty. This video shows people with a range of opinions and attitudes – with some opposed to, and some in favour of capital punishment.

5. Amnesty International: One last chance

In the US, it is customary to offer inmates on death row an option for their last meal. This animation shows several meal choices in an effort to highlight the theatrical nature of the death penalty in the US.

6. Human Rights Watch: Executing juvenile offenders in Yemen

Yemen is one of the few states that executes juvenile offenders, many of whom admit to alleged crimes after being tortured.

7. National Geographic: Inside death row

This series looks at death row from the perspective of former execution wardens.

8. Amnesty International: Behnoud's story

This moving animation tells the story of a lawyer in Iran, Mohammad Mostafaei, who tries to save the life of a young man on death row, Behnoud Shojaee.

9. One for Ten

For every ten people executed in the US since the death penalty was brought back in 1976, one person is exonerated - ie. found to be innocent of the crimes they're due to be executed for. The One for Ten series comprises ten short films about former death row prisoners in the States who were each found to be innocent and released.

source: AI

January 26, 2017: Kuwait has hanged seven prisoners, including a royal family member, according to a statement carried by the state-run KUNA news agency. The hangings on Wednesday were the first executions in the oil-rich Gulf state since mid-2013. Those executed included two Kuwaitis, two Egyptians, a Bangladeshi, a Filipina and an Ethiopian. They were convicted of offences ranging from murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and rape.
The Kuwaiti government identified the royal as Sheikh Faisal Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah and said he was convicted of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm. Nusra al-Enezi, the other Kuwaiti, was convicted of setting fire to a tent in 2009 during a wedding party for her husband, killing around 57 people, including women and children. It was an apparent act of revenge against her husband for taking a second wife. The Filipina and Ethiopian women were domestic helpers convicted of murdering members of their employers' families in two unrelated crimes. The two Egyptians were convicted of premeditated murders, while the Bangladeshi was convicted of abduction and rape. In the Philippines, authorities had earlier identified the Filipina hanged as Jakatia Pawa, who was convicted of killing her employer's 22-year old daughter in 2007.

source: Al Jazeera

January 10, 2017: Despite a sharp drop in executions, the United States ranked sixth among the world's executioners in 2016 behind only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan, according to a report by the British-based international human rights group, Reprieve. Maya Foa, a director of Reprieve, said "[i]t is alarming that countries with close links to the UK and [European Union] continue to occupy the ranks of the world's most prolific executioners in 2016." Questions of innocence, execution of juvenile offenders, and use of the death penalty for non-lethal drug offenses were among the top worldwide problems in the administration of the death penalty cited by Reprieve in the report. Reprieve's analysis of global executions in 2016 found that China continues to carry out the most executions of any country, though the exact number is a state secret. Nearly half of the more than 500 prisoners executed in Iran were killed for committing drug offenses. In Saudi Arabia, those executed included juvenile offenders and political protestors. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in 2014, ostensibly in response to terrorism. But Reprieve found that 94% of those executed had nothing to do with terrorism. The Reprieve report also raised concerns about Egypt's high rate of death sentencing -- more than 1,800 people have been sentenced to death in that country in the last three years.

source: DPIC

December 26, 2016: The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on December 20 to adopt a resolution co-sponsored by 89 countries urging a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. 117 nations voted in support of the world body's sixth resolution on the subject, equaling the record number of countries who supported a UN moratorium resolution in 2014. 40 member nations, including the United States, voted against the measure, while 31 abstained. The resolution also called upon all countries to respect international standards providing for procedural safeguards for those facing the death penalty, to comply with their obligations on consular relations, to progressively restrict their use of capital punishment, and to make available data on how and against whom they apply the death penalty. This year's vote reflected some countries' recent changes on the issue, as Guinea and Nauru, which have recently abolished the death penalty in law, joined those voting in favor. Two countries that are abolitionist in practice, but not in law, Malawi and Swaziland, also voted in favor of the resolution for the first time. Despite its status as a retentionist country, the United States has seen a decline in the use of the death penalty, with death sentences and executions both reaching historic lows this year.

izvor: DPIC

December 16, 2016: When the state of Alabama executed Ronald Bert Smith Jr. last week, he became the 20th inmate put to death in the United States this year. Smith’s execution was a rarity for the United States, where the death penalty is still retained in most states and on the federal level but, in practice, is carried out only in a shrinking handful of places. No other lethal injections are scheduled for this month, meaning Smith will probably be the last inmate executed this year in the United States. As a result, the country is poised to end 2016 with its lowest number of executions in 25 years. The decline in executions continues a recent trend, as 2016 will be the fourth consecutive year with fewer executions than the year before. It also speaks to a country that has shifted away from the death penalty in many places, while those states still trying to execute inmates have struggled with court challenges, drug shortages and issues with carrying out the executions. Overall, though, the trend is clear. Since a peak of 98 in 1999, executions have steadily declined, falling this year to the lowest total since 1991, when 14 inmates were put to death.

source: Wahington Post

December 10, 2016: A painstaking reconstruction of a real-time execution by lethal injection that highlights some of the very specific issues relating to the USA’s preferred execution method. Over the last few years, executions have been on the decline in the US, the practice has been fraught with pragmatic, fiscal, and constitutional problems. This hasn’t stopped the country from continuing to be one of the top executing nations in the world. #DeathPenaltyFail is a campaign to promote the facts, highlight the inefficiencies, and push for the repeal of the death penalty in the United States. Using films, visuals, and the stories of exonerees, victim’s families, and law enforcement, we are committed to educating people about the social, emotional, and financial burdens of the death penalty. Whether you support the death penalty or not, there can be no doubt that the death penalty is riddled with problems, and when that system leads to the taking of a life, the stakes are simply too high to ignore.

source: DeathPenaltyFail.org

November 29, 2016:: Death convict Ivan Kulesh has been executed, Andrei Paluda, a coordinator of the campaign Human Rights Defenders against the Death Penalty in Belarus, reports. Kulesh, 28, was reportedly shot on November 5. The exact date will be known after receiving a death certificate by the convict’s family members. In November 2015, the Hrodna Regional Court chaired by Judge Anatol Zayats sentenced Ivan Kulesh to death. He was found guilty of three murders, theft, robbery and attempted murder of another person. Belarus remains the only country in Europe that still applies capital punishment. Over 400 persons have been sentenced to death since 1991; president Alyaksandr Lukashenka granted a pardon to only one convict.

source: Hands off Cain

November 26, 2016: In April 2013, after ten consecutive years without carrying out executions, Cuba became a “de facto abolitionist” country. The Penal Code presently in force provides for the death penalty for 112 offences, 33 of which are common crimes. Offences punishable by death include: crimes against external State security; crimes against internal State security; crimes against peace and international law; acts against State security (like the violation of Cuban territory by participating as a member of the crew or travelling on board a ship or plane); crimes against the normal development of sexual relations and against the family, infancy and youth (rape when the victim is under 12 years of age or serious injury or illness results). On 28 April 2008, new Cuban President Raul Castro had announced that all death sentences had been commuted to prison terms of 30 years, with the exception of three people charged with terrorism, whose cases were still on appeal. “This does not mean we have eliminated the death penalty from the penal code,” Raul Castro said. However, since the decision to commute all death sentences in April 2008 and the last three inmates on death row saw their sentences commuted in December 2010, no death sentences have been handed down by the courts and no new executions have been carried out in Cuba. The Cuban Government has never released statistics on its prison population, convicts condemned to death or the number of executions. According to teacher Armando Lago, a consultant to the Stanford Research Institute, 5,621 executions have taken place on the island, the majority of them for politically related crimes.

source: Death Penalty News

November 14, 2016: Japan executed a death row inmate Friday, the Justice Ministry said in announcing the 17th execution in about four years since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power in December 2012.
The ministry said Kenichi Tajiri, 45, was hanged for killing two women in two murder-robbery cases in Kumamoto, southwestern Japan. This was the first execution ordered by Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda since he assumed his post in August, with the number of death row inmates in Japan now standing at 128.
In October, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations issued a declaration proposing the abolition of the death penalty by 2020 for the first time as the organization.

izvor: Japan Today

November 10, 2016: Voters in California and Nebraska on Tuesday rejected efforts to abolish the death penalty in their states. The two states—one deep red and the other deep blue—were seen as significant bellwethers for longtime opponents of capital punishment who had hoped for a different result.
In California, the ballot proposition to repeal the death penalty fell short with about 46 percent of the vote as of Wednesday morning. At the same time, voters narrowly passed a second proposition to speed up the process of executing death row inmates. In Nebraska, voters overwhelmingly chose to keep the death penalty by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent.
Heading into Tuesday, polls in California showed voters closely divided on the issue; Nebraska's scant polling showed the pro-death penalty side leading. But overall in the country, support for capital punishment and executions have both waned. In September, a Pew poll found support for the death penalty nationwide had fallen below 50 percent for the first time in nearly 50 years. Some states have been unable to carry out executions due to a shortage of the requisite drugs, including Nebraska, which has not executed anyone since 1997. California has not executed anyone since 2006, also out of concern for its drug protocols.

source: death penalty news

November 1, 2016: The Council of Europe warned Turkey against re-establishing the death penalty on Oct. 30. “Executing the death penalty is incompatible with membership of the Council of Europe,” the 47-member organization, which includes Turkey, tweeted a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoan said his government would ask parliament to consider reintroduction. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz added to the Council’s warning, denouncing Turkey for considering a move that would “slam the door shut to the European Union.” “The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane form of punishment, which has to be abolished worldwide and stands in clear contradiction to European values,” Kurz told the Austrian Press Agency. Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland had in August warned Ankara about reinstating capital punishment, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has ratified, clearly excluded it. The Convention, signed in 1983, excludes capital punishment except in time of war or imminent threat of war and a 2002 protocol ended the time-of-war proviso.

source: AFP

October 23, 2016: Hanging, beheading, stoning, electrocution and shooting by firing squad are favoured punishments in many parts of the world, according to Amnesty International.
Executions are often undertaken in an extremely public manner, with public hangings in Iran or live broadcasts of lethal injections in the US. According to UN human rights experts, executions in public serve no legitimate purpose and only increase the cruel, inhumane and degrading nature of this punishment.
“All executions violate the right to life. Those carried out publicly are a gross affront to human dignity which cannot be tolerated,” Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said.
Apart from drug-related offences, people were executed for crimes such as adultery, blasphemy, corruption, kidnapping and “questioning the leader’s policies”.
The death penalty is legal in 58 countries. The five top executioners in 2015 were China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the USA.

CANING
Countries:Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and some African countries
Caning can be ordered in some countries for anyone who has committed a range of offences including kidnapping, robbery, drug abuse, vandalism, rioting, sexual abuse, possession of weapons and for foreigners who overstay their visa by more than 90 days.
Medically-supervised caning is used regularly in Singapore and other countries. The wide cane is soaked in water to prevent it from splitting during use. The offender is ordered to strip naked, examined by a doctor and then whacked on the bare bottom at full force. The amount of strokes is dependant on the crime and the caning officer leaves intervals of 10 to 15 seconds between each.
The pain has been described as “beyond excruciating”, with the amount of blood “like a bleeding nose”. The wound can take up to a month to heal and sometimes can scar the offender.

STONING
Countries:Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria
Stoning is a form of execution by torture where the individual who throws the deadly stone cannot be identified.
In some countries, those sentenced to stoning, or “lapidation” as it is also called, are buried in a hole and covered with soil (men up to their waists; women to a line above their breasts), according to Article 102 of the Islamic Penal Code.
A selected group then executes the alleged adulterers using rocks and sticks. Those able to escape the hole during stoning can be freed, according to Islamic law, a feat that is much more difficult for women than for men because so much more of their body is covered during lapidation.

HANGING
Countries: Iran, Pakistan, USA, Egypt, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Belize, Brunei, Cameroon, Gambia, Antigua and Barbuda, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Oman, the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, South Sudan and Sudan, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tunisia, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Execution by hanging is the most common method of capital puishment.
Iran — where 369 people were reported executed in 2013 — leads the world in hangings.
On April 26, an Iranian prisoner was publicly hanged after being convicted of rape. Another Iranian, convicted of murder for killing a youth with a knife in a street fight in 2007, was hanged on April 15.

FIRING SQUAD
Countries: Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, India, China, North Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Oman, Yemen, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Gambia, Somalia, Eritrea, Benin, Qatar, Sierra Leone, Syria, Uganda, USA.
The United Arab Emirates uses firing squads for all executions, but death penalty sentences are rarely carried out. Somalia generally uses firing squads to carry out its death sentences.
It’s believed Belarus has carried out less than 10 executions in the past decade. Execution in Belarus is done by shooting the prisoner in the back of the head, but the death penalty’s use is shrouded in secrecy. Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, part of the ‘Bali Nine’, were convicted of drug smuggling and trafficking in Indonesia. They were executed by firing squad last year.

BEHEADING
Countries:Saudi Arabia, Benin, Yemen, Qatar
In Saudi Arabia, the usual method of execution is beheading by a swordsman.
Most people executed in the kingdom are beheaded with a sword. Members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family are only rarely known to have been executed. One of the most prominent cases was Faisal bin Musaid al Saud, who assassinated his uncle, King Faisal, in 1975.

ELECTROCUTION
Countries:USA
The USA is understood to be the only country that still uses electrocution as a method to carry out the death penalty.

FALLING FROM A HEIGHT
Countries: Iran
Judges sometimes sentence an individual to be thrown from a cliff or other height.

source: News AU

October 14, 2016: A new report by a Paris-based human rights group and Belarusian activists says Belarus has resumed executions after the European Union lifted most of its sanctions against the former Soviet nation. The report released Wednesday by FIDH and Viasna said its representatives attended a hearing earlier this month at the Belarusian Supreme Court, which upheld a death penalty verdict. The groups say executions in Belarus resumed in April after the EU lifted most of its sanctions imposed on Belarus and its authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko. More than 400 people have been executed since 1991 in Belarus, which remains the only European country that has not banned capital punishment. "The fact that EU sanctions were lifted had no effect on the future of Belarusian death row prisoners who are still executed by shooting in the middle of Europe," Viasna chief Alex Belyatsky told The Associated Press. Death row inmates in Belarus are kept in tiny cells where the inmates are not allowed to sit or lie on the bunk in the daytime. Relatives are not informed about the place or time of the execution and are not allowed to receive the body for burial.

Source: The Guardian

October 10, 2016: The public opinion poll that was commissioned regarding the World and European Day against the death penalty showed a dramatic jump of support of the death penalty in Serbia 58%. While the last year showed a drop of support 51% compared to year 2014 that was 54%, this year poll showed the highest support since SACP has been testing the public opinion in Serbia.

This year’s results:

When the undecided are excluded, 70% of respondents were for the death penalty and only 30% against it:

The poll („face-to-face“ survey of public opinion – omnibus) was administered by Ipsos Strategic Marketing, using the same methodology as in the past nine years, on a nationally representative sample (three-stage random representative stratified sample), from September, 22 to 29, 2016. The number of respondents in the realized sample was 1,051. The integral report is available here.

October 6, 2016: On 10 October 2016, the 14th World Day Against the Death Penalty is raising awareness around the application of the death penalty for terrorism-related offences, to reduce its use.
Running against the abolitionist worldwide movement, some governments have in recent years resorted to use of the death penalty following terrorist attacks on their countries, in the name of protecting their countries and peoples. In the last ten years, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Tunisia and others have adopted laws that expanded the scope of the death penalty, adding certain terrorist acts to the list of crimes punishable by death. More recently, Pakistan and Chad resumed executions in the name of the fight against terrorism, putting an end to moratoriums that had lasted for years.

The death penalty in practice:

• 104 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
• 6 countries have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes;
• 30 countries are abolitionist in practice;
• 58 countries and territories are retentionist;
• 25 countries carried out executions in 2015;
• The 5 top executioners in 2015 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA;
• 65 countries and territories retain the death penalty for terrorism. Of these:
   - 16 countries are abolitionist in practice;
   - 1 country is abolitionist in law for ordinary crimes.

source: World Coalition