'death penalty' - tagged features

From the many ways of dignifying death around Europe we now turn to one of the least dignified ways to die – state execution, or the death penalty. This week the European Union was abuzz with fresh plans to persuade the United Nations General Assembly to adopt a resolution condemning the use of the death penalty in its member states around the world. Many key states still use it, including the US, Japan, and China. But, it’s banned across the whole of the EU. Portugal holds the EU’s rotating presidency at the moment and it’s been spearheading the drive to get the UN resolution passed, as you’d imagine with no small degree of opposition. Vanessa Mock is Brussels correspondent for Radio Netherlands Worldwide and explains in this week’s Brussels Briefing that as a first step the Portuguese are calling for a suspension to executions in all UN member states. 

Earlier this week Europe marked the world anti-death penalty day. However, Poland was the only EU member state to oppose this Day Against the Death Penalty arguing that the subject should be approached in a broader way to also condemn abortion and euthanasia. At a conference in Lisbon, EU representatives and members of the much broader Council of Europe joined forces to abolish the death penalty and called for a universal moratorium on executions.