By IANS
New Delhi : A group of human rights activists Tuesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to support a resolution calling for a global moratorium on death penalties.
The activists, including eminent jurists like V.R. Krishna Iyer, Rajinder Sachar and Leila Seth, environment activist Medha Patkar and filmmaker Shyam Bengal said they opposed the death penalty as it was a “violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.
“The death penalty legitimises an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims as has been persistently demonstrated,” the activists said in a letter to Manmohan Singh.
They said that a momentum was gathering to end capital punishment across the world, with 133 countries having abolished the death penalty in law or in practice and only 25 countries carrying out executions in 2006.
The activists asked the Indian government to support a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly, which had set the goal of abolition of the death penalty in 1977. The UNGA is expected to introduce a resolution on capital punishment.
“The vote on this resolution affords India the opportunity to support the eventual abolition of the death penalty at the international level and strengthen world opinion against capital punishment,” the letter said.
The letter was a part of the Amnesty International’s attempts to mobilise support for the resolution.