Against death penalty

Òîìà Ìåäîâà
The death penalty is the gross violation of human rights. It is the deliberate and cold-blooded murder of a person by the state that is done in the name of justice.
    
     From the beginning, the death penalty was carried out instead of a blood feud. The form of justice was common before the development of state and religious court systems. The methods of execution were terrible and it used to be in public, sometimes in front of thousand people. This chilling public spectacle was designed as a visual show of the state’s power and to testify to the anger of the king. Today, when we have knowledge of the human psychology and know that violence breeds violence, a capital punishment is a relic of the past. Currently 97 mostly democratic countries have abolished it, but 57 nations such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the USA, Yemen, North Korea and Somalia still actively practise it. The most spread method of execution is shooting, but there are also the electric chair, the gas chamber, the lethal injection, hanging, beheading and stoning. Even death by boiling was used in Uzbekistan in 2002. 2,300 to 3,000 people are executed every year, mostly in China; some of them are juvenile. I think it is time to stop the lawful murder.
    
     Firstly, to realize a death sentence costs much more than a sentence to lifetime does. For example, in California (before abolishing of death penalty) taxpayers have paid more than 250 million dollars for each of the state’s executions. It’s not the executions itself but the juridical processes that cost so much. Instead of putting people to death, the money could be used to the prevention of youth crime.
    
     Secondly, it is not unusual that the offender in death row incurs psychological and physical abuses. The most harmless example I can name is that a condemned can be deprived of the opportunity to bid farewell to his family. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life and that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. The death penalty is uniquely a cruel and inhuman punishment that only satisfies a society that demands sacrifice. 
   
     Thirdly, a wrongful execution is always possible. You can never eliminate the chance of a mistake. Remember the Englishmen Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans’ cases - they were pardoned after being hung.  Evans lost his baby daughter and wife, who were killed, and then he was tried and executed in 1950, instead of the real murderer. Derek Bentley was a young man who was already under arrest at the time of the shooting he was executed for in 1953. What more, it is not unusual with self-denunciation for various reasons. So it happened to 17-year-old Delara Darabi from Iran. Her boy-friend, who had killed her relative, persuaded her to take the blame because she was a minor; he said there was no risk for her life, and she wanted to save him from the gallows. Despite the crime was solved, Delara was executed by hanging in 2009, after six years in death row. There are scores of innocent victims of the death penalty all over the world.
    
     The opponents of this point of view use arguments that statistical studies show the relevance between practicing death penalty and the level of crime in a country.  They say capital punishment saves lives.  It sounds a bit crazy when you know that there have been a total of 1226 executions in the US only since 1976. “Saving lives” by killing people! What a lesson the state is giving to their citizens by deliberately taking someone’s life? Yet, there are more researches with different results. Other scientists on the contrary prove that the level of crime is lower in countries that have abolished the capital punishment.    
    
     However, the death penalty is a brutal, bloodcurdling practice that does not belong to a modern democratic society. Vote against death penalty!



Sourses:

1. Death penalty in the US. Independence Educational Publishers (2011)
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment (2012-11-04)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzafar_Avazov (2012-11-04)
4. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki /Ñìåðòíàÿ êàçíü (2012-11-05)
5. http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty (2012-11-04)
6. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a3 (2012-11-05)
7. Soares, C. Delara Darabi: 'Oh mother, I can see the noose'. May 2009. Retrieved 2012-11-05from: 
8. Stanley, T. As Britain debates the death penalty again, studies from America confirm that it works. Telegraph Media Group Limited (2011-08-05)
9. Welch, F. Our dedication to the death penalty. Guardian News and Media Limited (2011-04-05)
10. The picture is borrowed from the internet