Human Rights Facts (42): Discrimination

I’ve written before on discrimination, especially gender discrimination (also here) and discrimination based on sexual orientation. This post tackles the subject more generally.
Discrimination, in its non-political and non-legal sense, simply means the recognition of differences. In the political and legal sense, it means unjustifiable differences in treatment between groups of people, most often the unjustifiable [...]

Human Rights Quote (55): Capital Punishment

Faut-il tuer pour empêcher qu’il n’y ait des méchants? C’est d’en faire deux au lieu d’un. Do we have to kill in order to get rid of bad people? Then we just double their number. Blaise Pascal
Amnesty International estimates that around 1.200 people were executed by their governments in 2007. Of course, this is a [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (85): Capital Punishment

(copyright http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/luckovich/)

(copyright http://www.greenberg-art.com/)
Many prisoners on death row in the US have waived all their appeals, fired their lawyers and written letters to governors begging for an execution date. From Time.com:
“These “volunteers” constitute 11% of executions nationwide, and will continue to dominate both the headlines and the execution schedules (8 of the last 16 executions in [...]

Human Rights Facts (6): Capital Punishment

Some data on capital punishment from Amnesty International:
“In 2007, at least 1,252 people were executed in 24 countries and at least 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries. Up to 27,500 people are estimated to be on death row across the world. But many more were killed by the state, in secret, in [...]

Human Rights Facts (2): Capital Punishment

Did you know about the gruesome execution method called “suspension hanging”?
Instead of the victim dropping into a hole and having his or her neck broken, the gallows and the noose are raised once the condemned is in place. This method is currently used in Iran, where tank gun barrels or mobile cranes are used to [...]

Human Rights Poem (31): The Capital of Punishment

One of my own:
The capital of punishment
Mistaken religion, unlucky position,
You may be spoiling someone’s horizon
Or crossing a trajectory in the streets of Baghdad.
It’s better that your execution is extra-judicial rather than intra.
At least you don’t have to wait for the date and satisfy the spectators.

Political Artist (11): Alanis Morissette

Political Artist (9): Elvis Costello

Albert Camus and Capital Punishment

I’ve mentioned Camus before. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_guillotine.

Human Rights Cartoon (26): Capital Punishment

(by mike keefe, www.intoon.com)
I’ve argued in previous posts against the death penalty. Here’s a nice quote by Albert Camus on the subject:
“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who [...]