28/03/2014 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC), general rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, has expressed her indignation over the increased number of executions carried out in the world, revealed in an Amnesty International report published on 27 March 2014.
"The frenzy of executions in certain countries such as Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, but also the United States, which holds observer status with the Council of Europe, is scandalous. The handful of countries responsible for the increase in executions observed in 2013 are now increasingly isolated from the growing majority of States who have abolished this practice or kept to a moratorium. The death penalty is clearly a cruel and ineffective punishment and a thing of the past. I can only urge all States to do away with it as quickly as possible."
The death penalty has been abolished in all Council of Europe member States, with the exception of Russia, which has observed a moratorium since joining the Organisation.