Today, October 10, is the world day against the death penalty. Out of 195 UN member states, 76 still permit routine capital punishment. Today is the day we work to change that.
This year's theme is the same as last year's: the link between the death penalty and torture. Quite apart from the use of torture to extract "confessions" in some death penalty states, methods of execution, death-row living conditions, and the suffering from anticipating execution can often constitute torture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Eliminating the death penalty will help eliminate these forms of torture.
The good news is that we are slowly winning. Earlier this year Ghana abolsihed the death penalty for ordinary crimes (though it still retains it for treason, for now), and Malaysia abolished its mandatory death penalty. Kenya, which hasn't executed anyone in 36 years, commuted all its outstanding death sentences to life imprisonment. While none of this is complete, formal abolition, its progress all the same.
