Two Million Imprisoned = Too Many

On August 13, thousands of people from around the nation are expected to march in a "Journey for Justice" to our nation's capitol. Times have certainly changed since the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, but this year's march still has everything to do with what many view as institutionalized racism.

Lois Ahrens, a participant in the 1963 March and a local Journey for Justice organizer, hopes the march will "make the connections between the promise of that march and that movement for civil rights and mass incarceration."

The U.S. is the world's leading jailer, imprisoning around 22 percent of the world's prison population in spite of representing only around 4.6 percent of the world's population. Of black men in their 20s and 30s, one in eight is imprisoned in the U.S., compared to only one in 63 white men. Yet Justice Department statistics show that from 1994 to 2003, violent crime fell by over 33 percent and property crimes by 23 percent.

This year, family, friends and allies of the more than two million people in U.S. jails and prisons will convene to voice their opposition to what is known as the prison industrial complex (PIC) -- the ever-expanding web of relationships among institutions, individuals, and corporations that benefit from continued reliance on mass imprisonment.

Roberta Franklin, director of Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated in Montgomery, Alabama, and her group are the main organizers of the march and have obtained sponsorship from over 70 other organizations in their fundraising efforts for the event. These include diverse prison reform groups targeting specific aspects of the criminal justice system, such as capital punishment, drug-related sentencing and juvenile justice.

The march has also secured sponsorship from groups with broader, more radical critiques of the PIC and the oppressive systems that drive it. These include groups with a long-term vision of a world without prisons, where everyone could thrive regardless of race, class, sexuality or gender.

This unprecedented alignment of organizers with politics ranging from liberal and progressive to radical and revolutionary speaks to widespread consensus on the severity of the current crisis of imprisonment.

Despite all this, the U.S. continues to push "tough on crime" rhetoric and invest in punishment and surveillance rather than nurturing local communities that have survived years of systemic oppression on the basis of race, class, sexuality and gender. This means that the mass imprisonment of communities of color and poor communities of all races only exacerbates existing inequities by taking loved ones away from families and communities.

Challenging mass imprisonment can be a tough sell even in leftist and progressive crowds, so opportunities like the "Journey for Justice" are important steps in amplifying these common demands to end imprisonment as the primary response to poverty and a lack of mental health care or effective responses to addiction.

But as with any social movement of activists who share deep concern about an issue, this one also harbors internal contradictions between those who seek "damage control" -- prison reformists -- and those who seek to challenge root causes driving the problem -- prison abolitionists. Enabling reformists and abolitionists to engage with each other allows them to focus on the common goals.

Reform and Abolition

Abolitionism is grounded in a vision of radical social and cultural transformation in building a world beyond the PIC. Prison abolitionists have been critiqued by reformists for prioritizing concerns with systemic harm experienced by groups of people -- for instance, institutionalized or state violence like policing and prisons and economic violence -- over harm experienced by individuals, as in incidences of interpersonal violence. Reformists also criticize abolitionists for prioritizing political theory over the actual conditions faced by people in prison.

Abolitionists, on the other hand, reproach reformists abolitionists for emphasizing conditions of confinement in the here-and-now at the expense of a longer-term vision of what a safer world without cages would actually look like. Abolitionists have thus argued that reformist efforts have historically failed to address the root causes underlying the PIC.

When it comes to day-to-day work, the lines between abolitionist and reformist strategies are certainly not black and white. Anti-prison and prison reform activists often easily agree on the need to offer drug programs, employment opportunities, affordable housing and mental health care, all of which would drastically reduce our nation's prison populations.

But many reformist efforts that at one time seemed necessary or logical have caused anti-prison and prison reform activists to evaluate whether these are causing more harm than good today. Reform efforts, for example, have historically advocated prisons tailored specifically to the daily needs of women. But such efforts have easily fed into arguments for bigger and "better" facilities -- and more of them.

It is true that most people who get locked up are convicted for nonviolent offenses, contrary to what the media and politicians would like us to think. But reformist rhetoric that uncritically accepts this divide between "deserving" nonviolent offenders and "undeserving" violent offenders only perpetuates the fundamental stories we are taught about safety and the need for continued punishment and confinement.

Projects that use such rhetoric stop short of questioning how the state constructs "crime" in response to poverty, institutionalized racism, heterosexism and gender oppression in order to disappear people whose lives are deeply impacted by these social problems.

Strengthening the movement

Anti-prison and prison reform activists and organizers have begun working to challenge mass imprisonment without undermining each other's preferred approach. Sitara Nieves, an organizer with Critical Resistance (CR), says that day-to-day organizing against the PIC at local and national levels provides opportunities to discuss how "fixing things a little bit is often subverted" and ends up strengthening the system. Zein El-Amine, who also organizes with CR, recognizes that engaging in these conversations is difficult. El-Amine says he has learned a lot from years of these often-heated debates. Today, he says that, "the way I personally work is to highlight abolition in the building process."

Palak Shah, editor of Defending Justice -- an activist resource kit published by the Political Research Associates to help "progressive activists understand and resist the Right, the State, and other forces" that contribute to the growing PIC -- agrees. Shah facilitated a series of workshops in conjunction with the recent release of Defending Justice. In each of these conversations, Shah says, it was "interesting to see how people respond to the abolitionist line. ...How you start talking about it is really important."

People in the anti-prison and prison reform movements have also begun carving out spaces specifically to dialogue with each other. For instance, the Progressive Communicators Network (PCN) recently sponsored its first Strategic Prison Reform and Abolition Communications Gathering. According to Alice do Valle, a member of PCN and the campaign coordinator at Justice Now, anti-prison and prison reform activists analyzed the potential harm and effectiveness of messaging currently used by their groups and movements. To do this, they examined whether groups' messages challenge or reinforce mainstream myths about the effectiveness and role of prisons.

This August's Journey for Justice provides yet another opportunity for the anti-prison and prison reform movements to reinforce each other. It also gives anyone concerned about the crisis of mass imprisonment a chance to support ending the suffering of people in prison today and abolishing the system in the long run.

Journey for Justice is scheduled for Saturday, August 13, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., starting at Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House. March participants will have the opportunity to meet each other ahead of time at a welcome reception at City Hall on Friday, August 12 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. (1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW, 1st Floor Foyer in Washington D.C.)

Vanessa Huang is a fellow at Justice Now, a human rights organization that works with women in prison to build a world without prisons.

By Vanessa Huang, WireTap Posted 5 August 05

WireTap

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LIFE ON A THREAD:

The difference between life and death can rest on the whim of a president or the ability of a lawyer. Whether or not the death penalty can be justified is very much up for grabs.

American writer and anti-capital punishment campaigner Richard North Patterson, was in Australia recently and says, though it hardly needs to be said, that proof of innocence is neither of use nor consolation to someone after they have been executed. All it can do is further fuel the motivation of those fighting for the abolition of capital punishment.

North Patterson believes capital punishment to be an abomination on a moral and judicial scale, a practice prone to corruption, error and ego.

The further her trial progresses, the more two schools of thought emerge about Gold Coast woman Schapelle Corby.

In Australia, the prevailing view is that she is innocent, being forced to sit and wait in a hot, crowded Indonesian prison cell located tantalisingly close to the beaches and other tourist settings she had left Australia to enjoy.

Supporters contend Corby not only is a victim of someone else's cruel trickery, but could become a sacrificial lamb paying for growing anti-Western sentiment within Indonesia's chiefly Muslim society.

The view from Indonesia, however, is that Corby is little more than a brazen opportunist, whose attempt to smuggle 4.1kg of cannabis into Bali last year in a boogie board bag protected only by its zipper, represents the height of arrogance, stupidity or both.

Corby is enmeshed in a legal system the workings of which can be incomprehensible to outsiders. All that is clear, and brutally so, is the possible result - the taking of her life, even if she is innocent.

North Patterson's latest novel, 'Conviction' uses fiction to expose the inadequacies, injustice and inequity of American death penalty law. In its comprehensive dissection of the American legal system, Conviction also can be read as a lesson to other governments and a plea for them, including Australia, not to consider the re-introduction of capital punishment.

While the brevity of his Australian stay did not allow North Patterson to become fully apprised of the Schapelle Corby case, the depth of his study and lobbying in the U.S. allows him to speak about its potential outcome.

"Some people say capital punishment legislation in the U.S. is incompetent. I'm not so sure. Lawyers are incompetent, not the law, because if the goal of the law is finality, even for the innocent, then achieving that goal through an execution is hardly incompetent," he says.

"But there are so many misconceptions about the death penalty that need to be addressed in order to change opinion that capital punishment is an appropriate measure.

"For starters, the American legal system is one that has many examples of people being put to death and later found not to have committed the crime. That is horrifying, but perhaps even worse is the feeble excuse that killing a few innocent people is an acceptable price to pay for getting the rest who are guilty.

"Secondly, the American legal system has too many lawyers who are either poseurs, hustlers or just plain incompetent. And there are not many lawyers prepared to defend the poor in capital punishment cases."

"Thirdly, too many Americans continue to convince themselves that capital punishment is a deterrent to violent crime. If it was, then Texas, for example, would be the safest place in the world. Take it from me, it's not."

North Patterson's mention of the U.S. state of Texas is deliberate. When American President George W. Bush was governor of the Lone Star state, he did not so much increase the number of executions as install an express lane.

Violent crime, however, did not diminish in the slightest, and of the 38 U.S. states with death penalty statutes, Texas executes more often than any other.

Conviction is set in San Francisco 12 years after two brothers, Rennell and Payton Price, have been sentenced to death for the killing of an 11-year-old girl. As the execution date looms, overworked lawyer Teresa Paget, her husband Chris and Harvard law graduate and stepson Carlo become convinced that Rennell Price did not receive a fair trial, may not have been mentally competent to stand trial in the first place, had a lousy lawyer and might actually be innocent.

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'Conviction' is a rivetting legal thriller from a writer who started his professional life as a trial lawyer in Washington and San Francisco. He then became an assistant attorney-general for the state of Ohio, before working as the liaison to the special prosecutor for the Watergate hearings in the 1970s, which helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

Among North Patterson's 12 best-selling novels are Degree of Guilt, No Safe Place, Balance of Power and The Final Judgment. He also serves on the boards of several Washington-based advocacy groups dealing with political reform, reproductive rights, gun violence and capital punishment.

Linking gun violence and capital punishment, North Patterson points out how American law is all-embracing in one context, yet apparently selective in the other.

"The right to bear arms, to own guns, is right up there near the front of the American Constitution, yet our gun laws have become idiotic," he says. "These laws make it possible for murderers, abusers, drug traffickers, you name it, to have guns.

The American passion for guns is such that it is possible to own any gun you want. The foolish belief is that guns make us safer, as if a bar full of armed drunks is safe. What kind of thinking is that? The nightly news is full of examples of the folly of our gun laws," he says.

Yet strangely, America's constitutionally approved right for everyone to own a gun is an example of democracy at work. In the case of the death penalty, however, democracy and equality are less visible, a point well made in 'Conviction'.

"Individual crimes must be punished, of course," says North Patterson. "But the U.S. death penalty is a classic example of the inequities within American society.

Death row cases in the U.S. are dominated by the
disenfranchised - blacks, Hispanics, the poor, people of substandard mentality, people with lack of opportunities in life, victims of abuse. They are also the people who cannot afford the best legal representation and so, as occurs in 'Conviction', they suffer from an incompetent defence," he says.

"If that's not bad enough, the final nail in their coffin - so to speak - comes in the form of community attitudes that say `Well, these are not worthwhile people to begin with, so what does it really matter if they're executed?'"

"Implicit in that attitude is a sense, a belief, that even if a person didn't commit this particular crime for which they are to be executed, they would have committed a similar crime sooner or later, so the death penalty is vindicated."

Then there is the scapegoat theory, which finds a person being made an example for social or political reasons, for the need for justice to be seen to be done. It is into this category that many fear Schapelle Corby has fallen.

While it serves nothing and no one to compare one country's legal system with another, compounding Corby's woes is the level of bitterness currently bouncing between Indonesia and Australia over the two-and-a half-year prison sentence recently given to Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for his alleged role in the Bali bombings of October, 2002.

Such ill feeling is a component of the ever-broadening division between Islam and the West since the events of September 11, 2001, and which have led to the ongoing debacle in Iraq, an increase in fundamentalist-inspired terrorism and the rise of the kind of ultra-right wing thinking that saw President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard re-elected so profoundly.

"It's a worry," says North Patterson. "The rise of the right wing makes it difficult to make headway in the fight for reforms on capital punishment, although that doesn't mean you stop fighting."

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AROUND THE WORLD:

Stats from 2004 reveal a sharp rise in the application of capital punishment around the world, although it is likely verifiable figures fall well short of the reality.

Executions by shooting were carried out last year in Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen, either by firing squad or a single bullet to the back of the head.

Hanging was prevalent, with executions in Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, India, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan and Singapore. Most of the 157 verifiable hangings last year were by the short drop method, although Iran continues to execute people by hoisting them into the air by crane (includes a 16-year-old girl, Ateqeh Rajabi, for her crime of premarital sex).

Saudi Arabia remains the only country where beheading is an official form of punishment, while lethal injection was the primary process in the United States.

Countries in which verifiable executions took place in 2004: Afghanistan - 1 shot; Bangladesh - 12 hanged; China - 24 shot and 193 injected; Egypt - 6 hanged; India - 1 hanged; Indonesia - 3 shot; Iran - 95 hanged; Japan - 2 hanged; Jordan - 1 hanged; Kuwait - 9 hanged; Lebanon - 2 shot and 1 hanged; Pakistan - 10 hanged; Saudi Arabia - 36 beheaded; Singapore - 4 hanged; United States - 58 injected and 1 electrocuted; Uzbekistan - 2 shot; Vietnam - 44 shot; Yemen - 1 shot.

(source: Gold Coast Bulletin, Australia)

(picture: Capital Punishmet)

By ACADP and Just Us posted 22 March 05

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AUSTRALIAN COALITION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY
* ACADP Incorporated *
******************************************
The Premier Australian Internet
Resource on Capital Punishment

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U.N. Group Seeks End To Executions The United States, Japan, China, India and Muslim nations including Saudi Arabia opposed the resolution. Burkina Faso, Cuba, Guatemala, South Korea and Sri Lanka abstained.

US: Execution Dear Friends, this is so sad especially for our dear friend, San Nguyen. San who lives in Oklahoma worked very hard with the rest of the Vietnamese community to stop Mr. Le's execution. You may remember San from being at CURE's First International Conference in New York City in 2001. San also plans to be at the 8th National Convention this June in Washington. Charlie

Please contact the Governor The Vietnamese-American Community, the ACLU, and many others want the March 30 execution of Huang Thanh Le commuted.

Cherie Blair attacks US over death penalty in Catholic paper Cherie Blair has renewed her attack on America's use of the death penalty. In a book review in the Catholic journal The Tablet, under her maiden name Cherie Booth, she says: "Capital cases are uniquely prone to error and thus call into question whether we can ever be really sure of obtaining the just result.

Death penalty: a lawyer sees the light The observation "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus" is illustrated by the two nations' differing reactions to the use of the death penalty as a legitimate punishment for murder.

OHIO: Judges join dissent on execution delay In Columbus, 5 federal appeals court judges say a convicted killer's request to delay his execution was illegally denied because 2 senior judges participated in the vote.

Stephen Romei: Death knell sounds for US capital law GEORGE Ryan gets my vote as Australian of the Year, even though he's the outgoing governor of the US state of Illinois. There's just no one I admire more right now, not even Greg's Kables Community News Newtwork..

Mexico Awaits Hague Ruling on Citizens on U.S. Death Row Sbaldo Torres, a convicted murderer on death row in Oklahoma, should have been dead by now, his appeals exhausted, his time up.

Jury Passes On Business Of Killing US: This drives the death penalty crowd in the legislature nuts. Yet another jury - another 12 men and women, tried and true, who had all attested to their belief in the death penalty - has refused to join in the killing business.

Ultimate Punishment Scott Turow has long juggled two careers‹that of a novelist and that of a lawyer. He wrote much of his first and best known legal thriller, Presumed Innocent, on the commuter train to and from work during the eight years he spent as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, and he has churned out another blockbuster every third year since joining the firm of Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal in 1986.

A Question of Innocence Rubin Carter: Day after day, week after week, I would sit in that filthy cell, seething. I was furious at everyone. At the two state witnesses who lied, at the police who put them up to it, at the prosecutor who sanctioned it, at the judge who allowed it, at the jury who accepted it, and at my own lawyer, for not being able to defeat it.

Amnesty steps up campaign to abolish death penalty Human rights watchdog Amnesty International is urging people around the world to pressure countries to abolish the death penalty.

'LAND OF THE FREE' SET TO EXECUTE TWO PRISONERS BY FIRING SQUAD: Wanted: Willing executioners for two convicted murderers. Must be psychologically sound and familiar with .30-calibre rifles. No victims' relatives need apply.

TEXAS EXECUTES 300th PRISONER Keith Clay was executed tonight, becoming the 300th prisoner in Texas to die by lethal injection since the rogue state resumed the death penalty 20 years ago.

AUSTRALIAN COALITION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY " ... Our nation was built on a promise of life and liberty for all citizens. Guided by a deep respect for human dignity, our Founding Fathers worked to secure these rights for future generations, and today we continue to seek to fulfil their promise in our laws and our society.

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Please note the following article carefully.....it shows clearly the hateful, uncaring and anti-human rights attitude as reflected by the Governor of Texas (and most other elected Texas officials).

Bush rules out death sentence review US President George W Bush says has dismissed any chance of a review of America's system of capital punishment.

Amnesty urges Bush to shut death row Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged US President George W. Bush to take a "moral stand" and abolish the death penalty after the Illinois Governor dramatically emptied that state's death row.

USA - A NATION IN TURMOIL: As the year 2002 draws to a close, little if anything, has changed in the United States in regards to state-sanctioned killing. Various campaigns, calls for clemency, petitions, and international condemnation, have failed to humanize U.S. politicians.

Here come de Judge - Time to Leave [266]
There have always been examples of rulings and interpretations that have supported the saying "The law is an ass". This is increasingly the case, because even the best intentioned judges are now facing an avalanche of new technologies and social change. But, it is no good making excuses for the judiciary and continuing to accept their strange interpretations. We must recognise that not only judges but the whole legal system will struggle more and more. In the end the whole system will become a farce. This is the way empires end.

Death penalty: a lawyer sees the light

The observation by [Cherie Blair? ] "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus" is illustrated by the two nations' differing reactions to the use of the death penalty as a legitimate punishment for murder.

In Europe one of the developing post-war insights into the requirements for the proper protection of fundamental rights is that the death penalty is unacceptable. For example, the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention (1983) provides that: "The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed." This right was incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act in 1998.

There is a growing worldwide movement to end the death penalty. The United Nation's Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty, and the 1999 Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium On Executions passed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission were created with the goal of making abolition of the death penalty an international norm.

There has been a growing amount of case law under the European Convention, the South African constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights to the effect that to expose an individual to the possibility of the death penalty violates their rights to fundamental justice and/or the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul, [religious bondage], concluded that in most cases there was no longer, [? never was], any moral basis to justify the use of the death penalty by the State. The United States, however, takes a different view.

The death penalty is used in 38 of the states. Only 12 states and the District of Columbia have abolished it. Yet the debate about whether it is appropriate to use capital punishment continues on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although, [allegedly], a majority of US citizens seem to be in favour of the death penalty, the October 2003 Gallup poll in the US, [allegedly], showed support for the death penalty at its lowest ever level at 63 per cent.

In this readable and fascinating book, the best-selling novelist and lawyer Scott Turow recounts how his service on the Illinois Governor's Commissions on Capital Punishment changed him from a "capital punishment agnostic", and led him to become one of the majority on the commission who voted against the retention of the death penalty in Illinois.

Turow first describes his own contrasting personal experiences and feelings when acting as the successful attorney on two contrasting death penalty cases. In one of them he was a prosecutor and in the other, ten years later, he was acting for the defence in a death row appeal.

He goes on to explain how the decision of Governor George Ryan of Illinois to set up the commission reflected a wider movement within the US to revisit the question of the death penalty. He rightly points out that behind instinctive expressions of support for the death penalty, the debate raises crucial questions about the goals of punishment, the possibility of redemption, the value of human life and the power of the State.

His thesis is that although on each side of the debate there are those who have deeply held convictions, for the majority of American citizens the matter is far more evenly balanced, with people being drawn to one side or the other of the debate depending on the circumstances of the particular case. During the Illinois Commission's deliberations they looked at the worryingly large number of cases where the innocent had been convicted of murder.

This revealed the paradox that since capital punishment is reserved by law for the worst of the worst murders, those that produce the strongest emotions of anger and outrage, this makes rational deliberation problematic for investigators, prosecutors, judges and juries.

The more horrific the murder, the harder the pressure from the public to secure a conviction both before and during the trial. Capital cases are uniquely prone to error and thus call into question whether we can ever be really sure of obtaining the just result.

For many Americans there can only be proper retribution for the victim's family if the murderer too loses his life. Turow points out that for these families the law has already failed since the purpose of the legal system is to protect the lives of the people.

For the many who seek the death penalty, the goal appears to be what has become known as "closure". But Turow points out that this desire applies to every murder case, and yet most murders do not attract the ultimate penalty.

Whilst acknowledging that the legal system has for too long ignored the perspective of the victims, [?], he concludes that the views of the survivors are not in themselves sufficient to justify the death penalty: "if we are to subscribe to the death penalty, it must benefit the rest of us as well."

In 1996, in a survey of 67 leading criminologists, 80 per cent said that existing research did not support a deterrence justification for capital punishment. In fact those states with the death penalty suffer from more incidences of violent crime than those that do not.

The benefit of capital punishment must therefore lie in retribution. But as a moral justification this only works if we are convinced that every execution is just: the reality is that too many innocent people are executed for the system to be able to claim a just precision. Add to this the lotteries of race, sex and geography and it is not possible to say that in every case the death penalty has achieved justice.

After considering the counterbalancing factors of the possibility of redemption and the possibility of re-offending, Turow concluded that it was not possible to support the death penalty. He concluded that there seems to be no possible system which does not occasionally condemn the innocent or undeserving.

The Illinois Commission itself was not charged with the task of recommending abolition.

Instead it put forward a number of proposals aimed at reducing the potential injustice. However, the State Legislature proved unable to pass the recommendations leaving it in the end to the State Governor to take a personal decision to commute all 167 death sentences 164 to life without parole.

The anticipated public outrage failed to materialise, the current Governor has continued the moratorium on the death penalty and almost all the Commission recommendations have been adopted.

Ultimate Punishment Scott Turow Picador, posted 11 feb 04

Related:

Cherie Blair attacks US over death penalty in Catholic paper
Cherie Blair has renewed her attack on America's use of the death penalty. In a book review in the Catholic journal The Tablet, under her maiden name Cherie Booth, she says: "Capital cases are uniquely prone to error and thus call into question whether we can ever be really sure of obtaining the just result.

Insane prisoner granted stay in the USA
The case of a condemned killer with a history of paranoid delusions and violent outbursts raises questions about executing the mentally ill.

OHIO: Judges join dissent on execution delay
Lewis Williams - his attorneys argued that he was mentally retarded, was executed by lethal injection on Jan. 14 2004 in Lucasville, Ohio at age 45.

Mexico Awaits Hague Ruling on Citizens on U.S. Death Row
Sbaldo Torres, a convicted murderer on death row in Oklahoma, should have been dead by now, his appeals exhausted, his time up. But because 15 judges in The Hague, acting at the request of the government of Mexico, have forbidden his execution for now, he is alive in a cell in McAlester, awaiting the next move from the Netherlands.

Jury Passes On Business Of Killing
US: This drives the death penalty crowd in the legislature nuts. Yet another jury - another 12 men and women, tried and true, who had all attested to their belief in the death penalty - has refused to join in the killing business.

Ultimate Punishment: Dealing With the Death Penalty
Scott Turow has long juggled two careers‹that of a novelist and that of a lawyer. He wrote much of his first and best known legal thriller, Presumed Innocent, on the commuter train to and from work during the eight years he spent as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, and he has churned out another blockbuster every third year since joining the firm of Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal in 1986.

Are you sane enough to be executed?
New York: The US Supreme Court has let stand a ruling by a federal appeals court in February that officials in the state of Arkansas had the right to force a convicted murderer to take drug treatment to make him sane enough to be executed.

Amnesty steps up campaign to abolish death penalty
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International is urging people around the world to pressure countries to abolish the death penalty. Amnesty director Irene Khan has released a statement, which raps governments for carrying out "executions".

Port Lincoln Mayor has lost the plot!
Controversial Port Lincoln Mayor Peter Davis has called for drug addicts to be given a lethal injection to cut rising illicit drug use on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

'LAND OF THE FREE' SET TO EXECUTE TWO PRISONERS BY FIRING SQUAD: Wanted: Willing executioners for two convicted murderers. Must be psychologically sound and familiar with .30-calibre rifles. No victims' relatives need apply.

There has been some debate whether: 'Capital punishment should be re-instated in Australia, since the terrible events that took place in Bali' In all democratic nations, every human being is considered innocent of any alleged crime, until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by a court of law. For this reason, certain safeguards must be used for capital punishment cases.

TEXAS EXECUTES 300th PRISONER
Keith Clay was executed tonight, becoming the 300th prisoner in Texas to die by lethal injection since the rogue state resumed the death penalty 20 years ago.

AUSTRALIAN COALITION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY
" ... Our nation was built on a promise of life and liberty for all citizens. Guided by a deep respect for human dignity, our Founding Fathers worked to secure these rights for future generations, and today we continue to seek to fulfil their promise in our laws and our society.

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Please note the following article carefully.....it shows clearly the hateful, uncaring and anti-human rights attitude as reflected by the Governor of Texas (and most other elected Texas officials).

Supreme Court Justice Blocks Execution
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens blocked Indiana from putting to death its oldest death row inmate Tuesday to give the 71-year-old prisoner, who is partially deaf and blind, extra time to file federal appeals.

Stephen Romei: Death knell sounds for US capital law
GEORGE RYAN, outgoing governor of the US state of Illinois a republican who leaves office today, has put US capital punishment on the road to oblivion by commuting the sentences of all 167 of the state's death row inmates. Three were re-sentenced to 40 years' jail and the remaining 164 got life without parole.

Amnesty urges Bush to shut death row
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged US President George W. Bush to take a "moral stand" and abolish the death penalty after the Illinois Governor dramatically emptied that state's death row.

Federal Government proposal to abolish the post of Race Discrimination Commissioner

How can the ruling class make laws that discriminate if there are those agencies that disagree?

I write to alert you to a Federal Government proposal to abolish the post of Race Discrimination Commissioner (together with the posts of Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Human Rights Commissioner and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner).

Those interested in this matter may like to make a submission to the Senate inquiry into the proposal before the closing date of 24 April 2003. Details follow.

Dr William Jonas AM, Acting Race Discrimination Commissioner, 9 April 2003

The proposal

Legislation has been introduced into federal Parliament to abolish the post of federal Race Discrimination Commissioner. The proposal is to restructure the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. If the changes are accepted by the Parliament there will be three generalist Human Rights Commissioners instead of the existing specialist commissioners. The post of President will be retained but Australia will no longer have a Race Discrimination Commissioner. Under the legislation, none of the three

Human Rights Commissioners would have specific responsibility for race discrimination. Allocation of specific responsibilities would be at the discretion of the President. Education on race discrimination, promoting understanding and friendship among ethnic groups and working to combat racial prejudice would be general Commission functions. They would compete for attention with the functions dealing with sex and disability discrimination, human rights and Indigenous social justice. There is no guarantee that a future Commission will always devote resources and attention to race issues.

The current position

The Race Discrimination Commissioner currently has responsibilities under Australia1s oldest anti-discrimination law, the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. Originally the Act was administered by a stand-alone Community Relations Commissioner. When the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was established in 1986, the position of Race Discrimination Commissioner was created and the Commissioner became a member of this new national body.

Former Commissioners include Ms Irene Moss (1986 - 1994) and Ms Zita Antonios (1994 - 1999).

The Commissioner has a broad role especially in public education, policy development, conducting national inquiries and producing reports on important issues of community relations in Australia. The role involves promoting equality in the political, economic, social and cultural fields for everyone regardless of race, colour, descent, national origin or ethnic origin.

Achievements of the Race Discrimination Commissioners. Major achievements include:

1986-87 - mediation of racial tensions in Goondiwindi and referral of Toomelah community conditions and services to the President for HREOC1s first public inquiry (which reported in 1988)

1991 - national inquiry into Racist Violence recommending the introduction of racial vilification legislation and other measures

1993-1996 - annual State of the Nation reports on the extent to which people from non-English speaking backgrounds experience equality and freedom from discrimination

1994 - a report drawing attention to the lack of safe drinking water in remote Indigenous communities

1995 - racial vilification legislation introduced; strong support for Aboriginal communities wishing to limit access to alcohol

1996 - publication of Face the Facts, providing factual information to counter prevalent misinformation about refugees, immigration and Indigenous issues

1997 - publication of a guide for the media on the racial vilification legislation

1999-2000 - independent information about racial discrimination in Australia provided to relevant UN treaty committees

2001 - national consultations on racism in Australia in preparation for the World Conference Against Racism; second edition of Face the Facts

2002 - symposium on racial vilification on the internet (cyber-racism) with industry and other expert participants

2003 - initiation of Isma? - Listen: National consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians

Other amendments

The legislation proposes changing the name of the Commission to the ÎAustralian Human Rights Commission1 and giving more prominence to the public education function the Commission already has.

Another amendment threatens the Commission1s independence as well as its potential to defend human rights effectively. The Commission will need the Attorney-General1s permission to apply to intervene in a court case raising a human rights principle. The Attorney-General will be the gatekeeper of this function even in case involving the government.

Read HREOC1s press release on the proposal at:
Senate is inquiring into the proposals.The legislation will be investigated by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee which has been asked to report by 29 May.Submissions close 24 April. For information about the inquiry, see:

From Peter Hallahan Secretary Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee posted 10 April 03

Contact details for the Committee are: Peter Hallahan Secretary Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee Room S1.61, Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Telephone: (02) 6277 3560 Fax: (02) 6277 5794 E Mail: legcon.sen@aph.gov.au

Middle Eastern: Specific Legislation

"If there is a target person the police would have powers in relation to that type of person," Mr Costa said. Asked what he meant by "type of person", Mr Costa said: "The example that's been given is if there's a description of somebody, an identikit photograph released by Interpol or other agencies ... these powers may well be exercised on that type of person."

Related:

Australia: Terrorising you in secret
Suspected terrorists [scapegoats and patsies for the Coalition of the Killing's resource wars in the Middle East] will be tried in secret under new laws to be introduced by the Federal Government.

Red paper classes Australia as terrorist suspects
Australia's old foreign policy red paper says Australians have become targets because their own government is being run by war criminals that are complicit in state terror, torture, murder, occupation and genocide.

Middle Eastern: Specific Legislation
"If there is a target person the police would have powers in relation to that type of person," Mr Costa said. Asked what he meant by "type of person", Mr Costa said: "The example that's been given is if there's a description of somebody, an identikit photograph released by Interpol or other agencies ... these powers may well be exercised on that type of person."

Howard defends terror alert
Prime Minister John Howard says the Federal Government would not have issued a terror alert if it had not come from a credible source. (America?) Speaking for the first time since the Government revealed the warning, Mr Howard says he wants people to be more careful, but not to stop living. [As long as they don't go dancing in Bali? And sure we'll all be depressed for as long as John Howard and Bob Carr say so.]

Carr backs Fed Govt's terror alert
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has defended the Federal Government's decision to issue a warning to Australians about a possible terrorist attack in Australia.

NSW Police Force may get 'special powers'
Civil libertarians are questioning the need for further anti-terrorism laws, which will be announced in the New South Wales Parliament on Tuesday.

Retrospective Laws: Mesmerised like a chook syndrome
What is it? This chook syndrome. Perhaps it is when we allow 800-year-old rule of law to diminish for a dictator like Bob Carr.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Texas State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator, Amnesty International USA

Friends----

Please note the following article carefully.....it shows clearly the hateful, uncaring and anti-human rights attitude as reflected by the Governor of Texas (and most other elected Texas officials).

How much longer is the abolition community going to accept these outrageous attitudes from Texas (and other US) officials? How many more people are going to be exterminated in Texas before the world decides that Texas is indeed an outlaw state, a pariah among civilized jurisdictions?

Where is the outrage over the fact that the EU does 44 BILLION dollars worth of business with Texas? Where is the remembrance that there is a direct link between business and human rights?

Why is there no major effort to isolate Texas politically,culturally, and economically from the world?

Why must Texas be allowed to reap huge profits from relations with European businesses?

There is no immediate end in sight for the execution industry in Texas. MANY more will be exterminated here in the immediate and foreseeable future.

Texas has already liquidated 8 human beings thus far this year in the death chamber in Huntsville, and another 9 more face a similar fate before April 23, including 3 more this month.

Texas has now carried out 297 of the 830 executions in the USA since the death penalty was re-legalized in 1976.

PLEASE------do all that you can to put pressure on the appropriate business, political and cultural entities in Europe to get them TO STOP THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH TEXAS......

There is NO JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER......NONE.......for maintaining relationships with Texas as long as the state willingly, openly, and defiantly ignores human rights standards and practices..

There can be NO COMPROMISE with the evil and barbarism of human executions. Texas has openly and repeated stated that it does not care about world opinion or international law.

Europe (and the rest of the civilized, pro-human rights world) must become much more aggressive and active in their rejection of ties with the free world's leading execution jurisdiction!!.

Human Rights Now! Stop Texas Executions!

By Rick Halperin President posted 11 Feb 03

Related:

Supreme Court Justice Blocks Execution
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens blocked Indiana from putting to death its oldest death row inmate Tuesday to give the 71-year-old prisoner, who is partially deaf and blind, extra time to file federal appeals.

Stephen Romei: Death knell sounds for US capital law
GEORGE RYAN, outgoing governor of the US state of Illinois a republican who leaves office today, has put US capital punishment on the road to oblivion by commuting the sentences of all 167 of the state's death row inmates. Three were re-sentenced to 40 years' jail and the remaining 164 got life without parole.

Amnesty urges Bush to shut death row
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged US President George W. Bush to take a "moral stand" and abolish the death penalty after the Illinois Governor dramatically emptied that state's death row.