^#smrgSAHAF When the State Kills: The Death Penalty : A Human Rights Issue -

This report is a damning indictment of the death penalty, the premeditated killing of a human being by the state in the past decade many thousands of prisoners have been executed in scores of countries around the world. Men, women and even children have been hanged, shot dead, electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, beheaded or stoned to death in fulfilment of judicial orders. Many of the executed were convicted of brutal crimes. Others died for non-violent offences, including “economic corruption” and adultery. Many went to their deaths for purely political reasons or after blatantly unfair trials. Some were prisoners of conscience. Nobody knows the exact number of innocent victims of execution. Cruel, arbitrary and irrevocable, the death penalty is imposed disproportionately on the poor and powerless. It is a violation of human rights.