Execution spurs European condemnation of death penalty

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http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/06/11/national/11MCEUROPE.htm

Execution spurs European condemnation of death penalty

By Matt Spetalnick

REUTERS

MADRID, Spain – The U.S. execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh today unleashed condemnation across Europe on the eve of President Bush's first official visit to the continent.

European opposition to the death penalty outweighed abhorrence at McVeigh's crime when he was put to death by lethal injection at an Indiana prison for a 1995 blast that gutted a federal office building and killed 168 people.

Critics of capital punishment called it a barbaric, bloodthirsty way of making McVeigh pay for his crime.

"By executing the first federal death row prisoner in nearly four decades, the USA has allowed vengeance to triumph over justice and distanced itself yet further from the aspirations of of the international community," the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said.

America's penchant for the death penalty puts it ethically at odds with its traditional European allies, which have all banned it. The last person executed in the European Union was killed by guillotine in France in 1977.

"The death penalty is a barbarism inappropriate to our times," said Antonio Maria Pereira, president of the Portuguese human rights group Law and Justice.

Controversy surrounding McVeigh's execution could cast a shadow over Bush's five-nation tour, which is expected to draw street protests not only against the death penalty but also against his policies on missile defense and global warming.

Some European media have depicted Bush as a "serial executioner" because of his record as governor of Texas, where 152 executions took place during his nearly six years in office.

The United States and Japan are the only two rich, industrialized democracies that still regularly put convicted criminals to death.

Many Europeans are puzzled that the United States, a country that holds itself up as a model of democracy and human rights, continues to carry out death sentences.

McVeigh's execution had particularly strong resonance in Spain, where Bush was due to arrive tomorrow morning on the first stop of his European tour.

Joaquin Martinez, a 30-year-old Spaniard who was convicted and then cleared of double murder in the United States, returned home yesterday after spending three years on Florida's death row.

His ordeal sparked public outrage in Spain, which is still haunted by memories of thousands of summary executions carried out during the 1939-1975 dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

"This doesn't solve anything. The politics aren't based on justice," said Pepe Mejia, spokesman for a coalition of Spanish groups planning protests against Bush's visit to Madrid.

Unlike the Martinez case, few Europeans doubted McVeigh's guilt in the worst terror bombing on U.S. soil. But many slammed the U.S. government for using a form of punishment that they consider cruel and outdated.

"McVeigh committed a horrible crime. What he did or why he did it is not being discussed - what is being discussed is the death sentence," said Sergio D'Elia, secretary of a protest group that demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Rome.

"Bush built his race to the White House on a road paved with those have been put to death."

Pope John Paul II had joined with human rights groups in appealing in vain for Bush to spare McVeigh's life.

-- (news@of.note), June 12, 2001

Answers

They're absolutely correct. We, as Americans, should demand that our government scrap our barbaric death penalty (where people are given a shot and merely fall asleep), and replace it with something much more acceptable to their delicate sensibilities and in tune with THEIR history. Like "Cruel and Unusual Punishment," maybe?

Besides, I'd bet that a lot of the survivors and relatives would have much preferred personally pulling out Timmy's fingernails one by one and hearing him scream in agony to watching him quietly drift off into dreamland.

-- (I Miss@The.Inquisition), June 12, 2001.


Ja, Amerikans are der Teufel's handmaidens.

-- (Dr_Josef_Mengele@Paraguay.smiling), June 12, 2001.

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