Those in glass houses...
Death penalty world map.
Color scheme: Blue: Abolished for all crimes
Green: Abolished for crimes not committed in exceptional circumstances (such as crimes committed in time of war)
Orange: Abolished in practice
Red: Legal form of punishment for heinous offenses.
Posting about the former metropolitan police chief's case for the death penalty, I started thinking about the use of capital punishment throughout the world. Firstly I should say that I am undecided about the issue and hope this post does not lead you to think I am actually anti-death penalty.
This map of the world shows which countries still employ the death penalty as a standard practice for heinous crimes. Interestingly, both China and the US still use the death penalty. In the light of recent news from Italy (and subsequently Spain, the UK, and various other countries) that the US has been known to stop off on Italian soil en route to countries that have not forbidden torture with prisoners on board, Bush's urges to China to improve its human rights record had me laughing..
As head of a country that still executes its prisoners, a country which is torturing muslim prisoners abroad, and a country which is currently occupying Iraq with a vicious insensitivity that has seen countless innocent civilians murdered in cold blood by its soldiers, Bush might do well to stop throwing such big rocks from the window of his glass house.
Obviously he is right about China, a country with such appalling secrets that no amount of accelerated growth will turn it into a truly modern and thriving state. But having read personal accounts of US soldiers who have served in Iraq, detailing how widespread the exceptionally cruel treatment of Iraqi civillians is (stories of children being shot in the street are particularly gruesome) Bush definitely needs to get his own house in order, too.
posted by Phu @ 2:30 pm
2 Comments:
The map just goes to show that there is no such thing as "the right way" or "the wrong way" to do things. We all have different perspectives, all of which are valid. From time immemorial we've made the rules up as we went along, on what was moral and what was not. Once it was OK to burn witches at the stake, not anymore so now. We decide on all this depending on how we think things should be and, more importantly, how we think we can best define ourselves.
Needless to say, taking away a life is taking away a life. And no life is less precious than any other. Even if the person has chosen to do less than precious things.
An issue being hotly debated over on the law west of ealing broadway now, following the death of pc beshenevsky in bradford.
Post a Comment
<< Home