08-03-2006, 06:30 AM | #1 |
Dracolisk
Join Date: March 21, 2001
Location: Europe
Age: 39
Posts: 6,136
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The European Commission has rebuffed a call by the Polish president for an EU-wide debate on reinstating the death penalty.
"The death penalty is not compatible with European values," a commission spokesman said in Brussels on Wednesday (2 August). Polish president Lech Kaczynski argued last Friday that "countries that give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death." "I think that over time Europe will change its view in this regard," he told Polish public radio. The rightist Law and Justice party, led by twin brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, won elections last September, with Lech becoming Polish president and Jaroslaw taking over as prime minister in July. In the meantime, the League of Polish Families, a nationalist minority party in Poland's governing coalition, launched a campaign for a partial restoration of the death penalty. "We want to collect half-a-million signatures of EU citizens on a petition demanding the death penalty for paedophile murderers," the vice-president of the party, Wojciech Wierzejski, said according to press reports. "The legal solutions for this disgusting crime in the European Union are an anachronism and are simply not adequate," he added. The League has been criticized by the European Parliament, which said in a June resolution that it was to blame for a rise in xenophobia in Poland. It said that the League's leaders "incite people to hatred and violence." The League's leader Roman Giertych however called the MEPs' report "slanderous." "I call on the parliament members to show one instance where the party leaders called for violence," he declared. The abolition of the death penalty is part of the human rights criteria of EU membership. Most western European countries abandoned the death penalty in the 1960s while central and eastern European states did so in the 1990s. Poland abolished capital punishment in 1997, following a nine-year moratorium on executions imposed in 1988. (Source: EUObserver) |
08-03-2006, 03:07 PM | #2 |
Dracolich
Join Date: January 24, 2004
Location: UK
Age: 41
Posts: 3,092
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No surprises there I guess.
I don't really have a problem with the death penalty as such; I just don't have enough faith in either the government or the criminal justice system to give them that much power. We need to be clawing power and rights back from the state in these times of the War on Terror, not giving them greater powers over us. |
08-05-2006, 06:49 PM | #3 |
Gold Dragon
Join Date: June 18, 2002
Location: Wolfville, NS / Calgary, AB
Age: 36
Posts: 2,563
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Well, if Poland wants to reinstitute it, fair enough. But they knew coming in that EU bylaws forbid it, so they have to decide whether or not it's worth it to them to tick off the EU over the issue. They don't really have any right to complain.
[ 08-05-2006, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: True_Moose ] |
08-05-2006, 07:59 PM | #4 |
Dracolisk
Join Date: March 21, 2001
Location: Europe
Age: 39
Posts: 6,136
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Hm.. actually, I don't think they can legally re-instate the death penalty without leaving the EU. (http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_re.../adp/index.htm)
But somehow I doubt that reinstating capital punishment was their intention to begin with, since public opinion in Europe (as far as I know) is fiercly against it. It is more likely that this was considered a cheap and easy way of scoring points with their right-wing supporters. It's something see it all the time in The Netherlands. Politicians launch an impossible plan that has no chance of succes whatsoever but is likely to sit well with their supporters. They get a ton of media coverage and can blame the EU when things don't work out. It's a perfect construction. |
08-30-2006, 04:49 PM | #5 | ||
The Magister
Join Date: September 29, 2003
Location: Sweden
Age: 47
Posts: 146
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Quote:
Quote:
I'm sure the US has some similar scapegoating (substitute Brussels with Washington) |
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