The death penalty violates the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It has no place in a modern criminal justice system.

An execution, just like torture, involves a deliberate assault on a prisoner. Even so-called ‘humane’ methods such as lethal injection can entail excruciating suffering.

Capital punishment is irrevocable. All judicial systems make mistakes, and as long as the death penalty persists, innocent people will be executed.

It is also discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, the powerless and the marginalized, as well as against people whom repressive governments want to eliminate.

The death penalty does not deter crime more than other punishments. In Canada the homicide rate has fallen by 40 per cent since 1975; the death penalty was abolished for murder in 1976.

International human rights treaties prohibit courts sentencing anyone who was under 18 years old at the time of the crime to death, or executing them. But a small number of countries continue to execute child offenders, violating their obligations under international law.

Key facts

• 135 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
• 62 countries retain and use the death penalty, most often as a punishment for people convicted of murder.
• At least 1,591 people were known to be executed in 25 countries during 2006. The true figure was certainly higher.
• 91 per cent of all known executions in 2006 took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA.

003.145 وَمَا كَانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَنْ تَمُوتَ إِلا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ كِتَابًا مُؤَجَّلا وَمَنْ يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَمَنْ يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الآخِرَةِ نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَسَنَجْزِي الشَّاكِرِينَ
003.145 Nor can a soul die except by God’s will, the term being fixed as by writing[...] We reward those that (serve us with) gratitude.

Thousands of years had passed… It’s time to stop killing each others. God reward those who forgive