Luxembourg calls for worldwide end of death penalty

(CS) To mark the World Day against the Death Penalty on October 10 the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry, together with 41 other countries, has called for the worldwide abolition of capital punishment.

“Convinced by the fundamental inhumanity of the death penalty, the 42 countries we represent are opposed to its use under all circumstances and around the whole world,” an open letter signed by the Foreign Ministers of 42 countries said on Thursday.

The ministers, including Jean Asselborn, argue that the death penalty violates human rights and disrespects human dignity, without deterring from crime or having a positive effect on security.

Together, the countries said that they want to share their experience of abolishing the death penalty, “a collective effort” that had to be continuously renewed, with “the power of perseverance” leading to a lower numbers of executions and finally, at the end of a long process, a ban on capital punishment in the signatories' nations.

They pledge to support other nations who want to go this path, saying that a collective effort by nations and societies around the world, to exchange information and conduct an informed debate, is needed.

A majority of United Nations member states supporting a moratorium on the death penalty, according to the signatories, “encourages us to image future generations living in a world without the death penalty.”

“Today, there rest only around 50 states that allow the death penalty, while 20 years ago this number was nearly twice as high.”

Among the signatories are all EU member states, which have abolished capital punishment in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, but also Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and several other European countries.

Countries which still apply death penalty include China, the US, North Korea, Vietnam, Japan and a number of Muslim countries, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Belarus is the only country on the European continent which still applies capital punishment.