31/07/2013 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Strasbourg, 31.07.2013 – “I am alarmed by the prospect of the imminent execution of Douglas Feldman, convicted for murder in 1999,” said today Marina Schuster (Germany, ALDE), rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Feldman will be the 11th prisoner executed this year in Texas, and the third this month alone.
“This series of executions comes at a time when momentum is growing across the country to adopt safe and just alternatives to the death penalty. Capital punishment has proven to be arbitrary, discriminatory and costly to taxpayers. I believe that this could be the right moment for Texas to show political courage and foresight, and to bring laws into the modern age by immediately suspending use of the death penalty, as a first step toward full abolition.”
“The death penalty is an unacceptable violation of human rights, no matter what the crime. Let us do our utmost to put a final end to this inhumane and unjust practice.”