Project Deat Penalty

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Death penalty report: China must end secrecy surrounding

sentences and executions

Methods of execution in 2009 included hanging, shooting, beheading, stoning, electrocution and lethal injection.

Where "+" is indicated after a country it means that the figure Amnesty International has calculated is a minimum

figure.

The report, Death Sentences and Executions in 2009, reveals that at least 714 people wereexecuted in 18 countries and at least 2001 people were sentenced to death in 56 countries last year.

This excludes the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, whereinformation on the death penalty remains a state secret.

Read through the text and summarize the content of the paragraphs:

Amnesty International on Tuesday challenged the Chinese authorities to reveal how many people

they execute and sentence to death, as the organization published its world overview of the death

penalty for 2009.

AI wants China to ...............................................................................................................................

In a challenge to China's lack of transparency, Amnesty International has decided not to publish itsown minimum figures for Chinese executions and death sentences in 2009. Estimates based on the

publicly available information grossly underrepresent the actual number the state killed or sentenced to death.

AI didn't publish numbers on death sentences in China, because.......................................................

..............................................................................................................................................................

"The death penalty is cruel and degrading, and an affront to human dignity," said Claudio Cordone,

Amnesty International's Interim Secretary General. "The Chinese authorities claim that fewer

executions are taking place. If this is true, why won't they tell the world how many people the state

put to death?"



Amnesty International's research shows that countries that still carry out executions are the

exception rather than the rule. In addition to China, the worst offending nations were Iran with at

least 388 executions, Iraq at least 120, Saudi Arabia at least 69 and the USA with 52.

Most executions take place in ... ..........................................................................................................

Last year the death sentence was used extensively to send political messages, to silence opponentsor to promote political agendas in China, Iran and Sudan, according to Amnesty International's

report. In Iran, 112 executions were known to have taken place in the eight-week period between

the presidential election on 12 June and the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second

term as President on 5 August.

Political opponents of governments ...................................................................................................

The report addresses the discriminatory way the death penalty was applied in 2009, often after

grossly unfair trials, and used much more often against the poor, minorities and members of racial,

ethnic and religious communities.

Trials often are unfair, because ...........................................................................................................

.............................................................................................................................................................

Yet the figures also show that the world continued to move towards abolition in 2009. The number

of countries that have removed capital punishment entirely from their laws rose to 95 as Burundi

and Togo abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

Fewer countries .......................................................................................................................

For the first year since Amnesty International began keeping records, no executions took place in

Europe in 2009. Across the Americas, the USA was the only country to carry out executions.

"Fewer countries than ever before are carrying out executions. As it did with slavery and apartheid,

the world is rejecting this embarrassment to humanity," said Claudio Cordone. "We are moving

closer to a death penalty free world, but until that day every execution must be opposed."



Read through the text and memorize the information. You'll have to tell your colleagues what

happened in this region:

y In Asia, thousands of executions were likely to have taken place in China, whereinformation on the death penalty remains a state secret. Only seven other countries were

known to have carried out executions - Bangladesh, Japan, North Korea, Malaysia,

Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam ± with 26 executions known to have taken place.

Afghanistan, Indonesia, Mongolia and Pakistan did not carry out executions in 2009, the

first execution-free year in those countries in recent times.

y In the Middle East and North Africa at least 624 executions were known to have been

carried out in seven countries: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.Saudi Arabia and Iran executed seven people who were under 18 at the time of the alleged

offence, in violation of international law. Several countries - Algeria, Lebanon,Morocco/Western Sahara and Tunisia - maintained longstanding moratoriums on

executions.

y No executions took place in Europe in 2009. Belarus remains the only nation to use the

death penalty in the region. Although no one was executed in the former Soviet country last

year, two people were killed by the state in March 2010.

y In sub-Saharan Africa only two countries executed prisoners: Botswana and Sudan. Thelargest mass commutation of death sentences ever known to Amnesty International took

place in Kenya as the government announced that more than 4,000 condemned prisonerswould have their sentences commuted to imprisonment.



Read carefully through the text, write down 10 keywords and use these keywords to inform

your neighbour about the content:

Delara Darabi executed in Iran

30 April 2009

Iranian authorities executed Delara Darabi in Rasht Central Prison on Friday morning. She is thesecond person to be executed this year after being convicted of a crime she was alleged to have

commited while still under 18, Amnesty International has revealed.

"Amnesty International is outraged at the execution of Delara Darabi, and particularly at the newsthat her lawyer was not informed about the execution, despite the legal requirement that he should

receive 48 hours' notice," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and

North Africa Programme.

"This appears to have been a cynical move on the part of the authorities to avoid domestic and

international protests which might have saved Delara Darabi's life."

Delara Darabi was executed despite her having been given a two-month stay of execution by the

Head of the Judiciary on 19 April.

"This indicates that even decisions by the Head of the Judiciary carry no weight and are disregarded

in the provinces," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Delara Darabi was convicted of murdering a relative in 2003 when she was 17. She initiallyconfessed to the murder, believing she could save her boyfriend from the gallows, but later retracted

her confession. She was detained at Rasht Prison in northern Iran since her arrest in 2003, duringwhich time she developed a significant talent as a painter.

Amnesty International does not consider her trial to have been fair, as the courts later refused toconsider new evidence which the lawyer said would have proved she could not have committed themurder.

Amnesty International had campaigned to save her life since her case came to light in 2006, urging

the Iranian authorities to commute her death sentence and calling for a her re-trial in proceedings

that meet international standards.

The execution of Delara Darabi brings the number of executions in Iran this year to 140. She is the

second woman known to have been executed. Iran has executed at least forty two juvenile offenders

since 1990, eight of them in 2008 and one on 21 January 2009, in total disregard of international



law, which unequivocally bans the execution of those convicted of crimes committed when under

the age of 18.

Read carefully through the text, write down 10 keywords and use these keywords to informyour neighbour about the content:

Exonerations and pardons

Kirk Bloodsworth was the first American to be freed from death row as a result of exoneration by

DNA fingerprinting. Ray Krone is the 100th American to have been sentenced to death and later

exonerated.

In the U.K., reviews prompted by the Criminal Cases Review Commission have resulted in one

pardon and three exonerations for people executed between 1950 and 1953 (when the execution rate

in England and Wales averaged 17 per year), with compensation being paid. Timothy Evans was

granted a posthumous free pardon in 1966. Mahmood Hussein Mattan was convicted in 1952 andwas the last person to be hanged in Cardiff, Wales, but had his conviction quashed in 1998. George

Kelly was hanged at Liverpool in 1950, but had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal inJune 2003.[18] Derek Bentley had his conviction quashed in 1998 with the appeal trial judge, Lord

Bingham, noting that the original trial judge, Lord Goddard, had denied the defendant "the fair trialwhich is the birthright of every British citizen."

Colin Campbell Ross (1892 ² 1922) was an Australian wine-bar owner executed for the rape and

murder of a child which became known as The Gun Alley Murder, despite there being evidence that

he was innocent. Following his execution, efforts were made to clear his name, and in the 1990s old

evidence was re-examined with modern forensic techniques which supported the view that Ross

was innocent. In 2006 an appeal for mercy was made to Victoria's Chief Justice and on 27 May2008, the Victorian government pardoned Ross in what is believed to be an Australian legal

first.[19]



Here are some last sentences of people who were executed in the U.S. You can hand out cards with

the pictures and sentences to the students, who turn them into reported speech and then inform their colleagues. Further activities could be discussions about who of these people claim to be innocent,

i-net research about what their crimes were, etc.

"First of all I would like to tell my Uncle Kyle that I am sorry. I have been sorry for the last

10 years for what I did. I wish you could accept my apology. I know you can't accept myapology, I know you can't give your forgiveness; it's okay and I understand. I have done what

I could to heal the rest of the family. I wish that someday you could come to terms and

understand. I know I was wrong; I accept responsibility as a man. I take this penalty as a

man. This doesn't solve anything, 'cause it hurts others that love me. I am sorry. I love you

Kjersti. I love you too Roland. I love you too Uncle Kyle; I am still your nephew, no matter

what you believe."

²Carlton Akee Turner, executed in Texas on July 10 , 2008

"I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That's the biggest joke. I deserve

this."

²Patrick Bryan Knight, executed in Texas on June 26, 2007

"Yes, for all of those that want this to happen, I hope that you get what you want and it makes

you feel better and that it gives you some kind of relief. I don't know what else to say. For

those that I have hurt, I hope after a while it gets better. I love you, I love you. I am sorry.

That's it, goodbye. I love you Irene, I love you sis."

²Newton Anderson, executed in Texas on Feb. 22, 2007



"It was done out of fear, stupidity and immaturity. It wasn't until I got locked up and saw the

newspaper; I saw his face and smile and I realized I had killed a good man." ²Johnathan Moore, executed in Texas on Jan. 17, 2007

"There is no way words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies. Now I

can be with my babies, as I always intended."

²Christina Marie Riggs, executed in Arkansas on May 3, 2000

"We all know what really happened, but there are some things you just can't fight. Little

people always seem to get squashed. It happens. ... There is no man that is free from all evil,

nor any man that is so evil to be worth nothing."

²David Castillo, executed in Texas on Aug. 23, 1998

"I want you to know that I did not kill your sister. If you want to know the truth, and youdeserve to know the truth, hire your own investigators."

²Pedro Muniz, executed in Texas on May 19, 1998

"I would like to say to the world, I have always been a nice person. I have never been mean-

hearted or cruel. I wish everybody well."

²Granville Riddle, executed in Texas on Jan. 30, 2003



"Now that I'm dying, there is nothing left to worry about. I know it was a mistake. ...

Everybody has problems, and I won't be part of the problem anymore. I can quit worrying

now. It was all a mistake. That's all I want to say." ²James Colburn, executed in Texas on March 26, 2003

"I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law,

that before they did, that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously."

² William George Bonin, executed in California on Feb. 23, 1996

"For 17 years the Attorney General has been pursuing the wrong man. In time he will cometo know this. I don't want anyone to avenge my death. Instead I want you to stop killing

people. God bless."

²Thomas Martin Thompson, executed in California on July 14, 1998

"An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. When my innocence is proven, I hope

Americans will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have." ²Roger Keith Coleman, executed in Virginia on May 20, 1992

"Like I've said from day one, I did not go in there and kill them ² but I am no better than

those that did. Jesus is Lord."

²Edward Lagrone, executed in Texas on Feb. 11, 2004



"I'm sorry I killed Wayne Shinn. I hope North Carolina will one day be sorry that they killedme."

²David Lawson, executed in North Carolina on June 15, 1994

"Well, first I want to say. They may execute me but they can't punish me because they can't

execute an innocent man. I am not mad. I am disappointed by the courts. I feel like I was

upset and let down by them. But that's O.K. I just played the hand that life dealt me. Look atmy life and learn from it. I am very remorseful about what I did. I apologize. To my kids,

Daddy loves you. Irene Wilcox, Thank you. It's been a long journey. Thank you for being

there. Tell Jack hello. I know I am wrong but I am asking ya'll to forgive me." ²Willie Pondexter, executed in Texas on March 3, 2009

"I was once asked by somebody, I don't remember who, if there was any way sex offenders

could be stopped. I said no. I was wrong."

² Westley Allan Dodd, executed in Washington on Jan. 5, 1993

"I can't really pinpoint where it started, what happened, but really believe that's just thebottom line, what happened to me was in California. I was in their reformatory schools and

penitentiary, but ah, they create monsters in there." ²David Long, executed in Texas on Dec. 8, 1999



"We will keep marching. Keep marching black people, black power. ... Keep marching black

people. Keep marching black people. They

are killing me tonight. They are murdering

me tonight."

²Gary Graham, executed in Texas on June 22, 2000

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