The death penalty is always inhumane, and the past few days in Texas have brought to light some of its most worrisome aspects.

On Wednesday, The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that Robert Thompson’s death sentence for his role in a 1996 robbery and shooting be commuted to life imprisonment. The shooter, Sammy Butler, was convicted and received life in prison, which raises serious questions about the arbitrary nature of how the death penalty works in real life. Why wait until the last minute to discuss the disproportionality of sentencing the accomplice to death while the man who pulled the trigger is sentenced to life in prison?

Earlier this week a federal judge in Houston granted a last-minute stay to Gerald Eldridge, allowing 90 days for a review of his mental state and capacity. Executing the mentally ill is extremely problematic, and the time to deal with such a serious issue is not during a prisoner’s last meal. Such jarring, nerve-wracking changes at the last second are traumatic for everyone involved, including the victims’ families.

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AIUSA activists in Chicago demand the release of Internally Displaced People in Sri Lanka. November 2009. (c) AI

Across the U.S., from Boston to Chicago to San Francisco, Amnesty International activists are demanding:  “Unlock the camps in Sri Lanka!”

As the 26-year-old war between the Sri Lankan government and the opposition Tamil Tigers ended this past May, about 280,000 Tamil civilians fleeing the fighting were put in overcrowded, military-run camps which they were not allowed to leave.  The Sri Lankan government said that the civilians first had to be screened to determine if any of them were Tiger fighters.  Amnesty International has pointed out that this constitutes arbitrary detention and violates the civilians’ right to freedom of movement.

Although some civilians have been released from the camps, around 150,000 still remain and camp shelters have deteriorated as Sri Lanka has entered the rainy season.

Amnesty’s “Unlock the Camps” campaign calls on the Sri Lankan government to let civilians leave the camps if they wish, to put the camps under civilian (not military) management, and to allow aid agencies full access to the camps.

Earlier this month, AIUSA members gathered in Boston and San Franscisco signed petitions and postcards demanding that the Sri Lankan government “Unlock the Camps!” (more…)

Caught between a legal requirement to avoid cruelty, and its desire to kill prisoners, the state of Ohio is struggling to find an acceptable method of execution following the botched, and failed, attempt to put Romell Broom to death on September 15.  As reported in today’s New York Times, the method the state has chosen is injection into the vein of a single, lethal dose of anesthetic.  This seems peculiar, since it was failure to find a suitable vein that led to the botched executions of Joseph Clark and Christopher Newton, as well as the recent Broom fiasco.

In the new Ohio protocol, another alternative, intramuscular injection, is available as a backup.  This method has not been used before, but was given the thumbs up by Massachusetts anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the one doctor in America who seems willing to help states kill prisoners.  A local Ohio doctor, Jonathan Groner, seems to disagree, suggesting that legal challenges are far from over.  “In the end this is still about killing people.”

It is indeed, and if this protocol proves acceptable to Ohio and federal courts, the lethal injection of Kenneth Biros and others could be back on schedule (the stay of Biros’ December 8 date is only temporary), and Ohio’s one-a-month assembly line of executions could be back in business.

This posting is part of our Write-a-Thon Cases Series. For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/writeathon/

Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini © Private

Despite having been cleared for release more than four years ago, twenty-six-year-old Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini remains detained in Guántanamo. Odaini was sent to the detention center at the U.S Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in March 2002 along with fourteen other Yemeni nationals, all of whom were turned over by Pakistani police. In June 2005, U.S. authorities declared Odani suitable for release from Guantánamo. Yemeni authorities are prepared to take him back, however he continues to be detained without reason. He has not been interrogated for nearly two years and the reason for his continued detention is unclear.

Participate in this year’s Amnesty International annual Global Write-a-thon and help free Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini by writing a letter on his behalf to the Commander of the Joint Task Force Guantánamo. Be one of the thousands of individuals asking why Odaini and fellow detainees remain detained despite being cleared for release. By putting pressure on the Commander now, we hope to help release Odaini and fellow Yemenis and enable them to go back to Yemen. Writing a letter could not only help Mr. Odaini but the other detainees currently being unlawfully held in Guantánamo.

By Morgan Brescia, AIUSA Campaign for Individuals at Risk

The Obama administration’s decision to refer a further five GTMO detainees, including self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, for trial federal court in New York City is a small but significant victory for the rule of law.

Carrie Lemack, whose mother was killed on board one the planes flown into the World Trade Center, welcomed the transfer telling the BBC:

“At the end of the day my mother and nearly three thousand others were murdered. And they deserve the right to have a trial of their murders and their families, me, my sister, so many other families of 9/11, deserve our day in court to hold to account those who did these terrible offenses.”

Yet this decision has predictably provoked a backlash from right-wing Republicans who can’t seem to help themselves when the opportunity for fear-mongering presents itself. Indeed, the Republican Party is proving to be one of Osama bin Laden’s most consistent boosters.

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A new report released by New York’s City Bar Justice Center opens a window not only to the problems of immigrants being held in the Varick Federal Detention Center, but also profiles the problems rampant throughout the US immigration system.  The report describes the Know Your Rights Project – a joint effort of the City Bar Justice Center, the Legal Aid Society and the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association NYC Chapter Pro Bono Committee.  158 interviews were conducted from December 2008 to July 2009, by pro bono attorneys providing legal counsel to immigrants detained at Varick Federal Detention Center.

While sometimes stark and startling, the results reported in the City Bar Justice’s publication are not an isolated circumstance, but rather a case study of an all too common phenomenon.  As Amnesty International has reported on and advocated against for several years, and even the United States Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on US Immigration Policy has admitted, the United States immigration system is not merely flawed—it is broken.

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UPDATE:  Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has denied John Muhammad’s request for clemency.

This evening Texas and Virginia, the two most prolific executing states in the USA, are both slated to carry out lethal injections.  Texas has scheduled an execution for Yosvanis Valle – a Cuban national – while Virginia is preparing to put to death John Allen Muhammad, known by most simply as the “DC sniper”.  The crimes for which John Muhammad is known inflicted serious trauma not just on the victims  and their families but on the entire Washington DC area.

But we at Amnesty International oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception.  Like torture, the deliberate killing of prisoners is a fundamental violation of human rights.  No human being, no matter how unsympathetic or how heinous the crimes for which he has been convicted, should ever be subjected to the kind of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that both torture and executions represent.  There are lines that we as a society should simply not cross, or lines that we should not cede to our governments the power to cross.  And there have to be better ways to respond to traumatic crimes than with violations of basic human rights.

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Earlier today an Italian court convicted in absentia twenty-two CIA officers and a colonel in the US Air Force of charges relating to the February 2003 kidnapping of Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr aka Abu Omar.

Abu Omar was a victim of the extraordinary rendition program established by the Clinton administration and greatly expanded under President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

He was snatched off the street in Milan and flown secretly to Cairo where he was handed off to Egyptian security officials. Abu Omar was tortured extensively in Egyptian custody. He was finally released without charge in 2007.

The Italian decision is a graphic illustration of just how damaging practices such as kidnapping and torture are to America’s national security.

Armando Spataro, the deputy Milan public prosecutor, told reporters:

“This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can’t forsake the basic rights of our democracies.”

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Aterciopelados at UN concert ©AI

The Colombian rock group Aterciopelados performed last week at the UN Day Concert: A Tribute to Peacekeeping, as they performed their hit song ‘The Price of Silence’ at the ceremony in New York this past Friday, October 23rd. The UN Day Concert event was put together by the non-profit organization, Culture Project to commemorate the anniversary of the United Nations charter, focusing on its most crucial purpose of peacekeeping. The event featured live music performances and documentary clips, appearances by the Aterciopelados, CNN’s Isha Sesay, Roberta Flack, Lang Lang, Harry Belafonte, , Angelique Kidjo, former child soldier Emmanuel Jal, and Sister Fa. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made an introductory statement at the event and then stayed for the show.

Aterciopelados were invited because of their contribution and participation with  Amnesty International campaigns, since late 2008. They participated in a collaborative performance with singers from all over the world for a human rights anthem ‘The price of silence’, inspired by an Aterciopelados song called “Protest Song” from their album Oye, Latin Grammy winner.

In a recent interview on NPR, former Texas Governor Mark White discussed his lack of faith in the ability of the legal system to reliably handle death penalty cases, and emphasized the seriousness of handing down an irreversible sentence to a person who may later be proven innocent. While he was Governor, he oversaw a significant number of executions, but White now believes that: ”What I see in retrospect is that our system is not as foolproof as I think it should be in order to carry out a punishment that’s irreversible.”

White also stated that he has never believed in the death penalty as a deterrent, because: “Obviously, with 400 people on death row, there’s at least 400 people up there that didn’t deter.”

As Amnesty International observed, Governor White’s evolution on this question is part of a national trend: “As advances in DNA and forensic science have revealed the extent to which our criminal justice system is prone to error, judges, jurors, the public, and even some politicians, have begun to question the wisdom of resorting to capital punishment.”

White’s statements (he’s a Democrat) also come at a particularly bad time for current Governor Rick Perry, who, in the middle of a re-election campaign, is now being scrutinized for his role in the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who appears to have been innocent and wrongly put to death.

In the past, you would only pay a political price if you didn’t support the death penalty strongly enough.  But in Texas, as everywhere else in the U.S., times have changed, and it would be quite something if the most prolific executing Governor in modern history wound up suffering politically because he supported the death penalty too much.