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February 27, 2001
Joe Saunders: I want to get started with some very basic
questions about Together Against the Death Penalty. What is the mission of the
organization? When were you founded and how many staff do you have?
Anne-Charlotte Dommartin: The organization was founded in 2000
on the initiative of Michel Taube and Benjamin Menasce when they wrote a book
called Open Letter to the American People on the Abolition of the Death
Penalty that was published in French. It was quite a big success. As a
result, a petition to end the death penalty was launched on the Web that
collected half a million signatures. We now have four full-time staff, plus
interns.
JS: When was the book published?
AD: March 2000, and the reaction was what led to the creation
of the organization. Following the book, a small congress was organized in
Paris, which was called the European Forum Against the Death Penalty. It was
attended by members of parliament and lawyers from both sides of the Atlantic.
That was in October 2000, three weeks before the U.S. presidential election.
Then the first World Congress against the Death Penalty was held in Strasbourg
in June 2001. We organized the event in partnership with Amnesty International,
The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Penal Reform
International, The European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Presidency of
the French National Assembly, and others. The idea was mainly to promote the
issue and raise awareness in France and Europe about the death penalty in the
rest of the world.
JS: You said the organization started with a book that Michel
co-authored that focused on the United States. When did you expand the mission
to the whole world?
Michel Taube: We did that in the very beginning, in fact. While
holding the European Forum, we realized that the death penalty was a world
problem. Even if it is very different in China, the U.S., Africa, etc., in fact,
there are the same issues, and we decided in November 2000 to change our title
from Together Against the Death Penalty in the USA to Together Against the Death
Penalty.
JS: Is it a membership organization?
AD: In the beginning, it was not a membership organization but
we had so many requests, especially after the World Congress, we made it one.
Now we have over 200 members, mainly in France, and we have an e-mail list of
64,000 people, including many Americans, and they get regular e-mails from us on
the death penalty and news about it.
JS: How much of a priority is the United States for your
organization, and why?
AD: It is crucial for two reasons. First, the United States and
Japan are the only democracies that still execute people. The justice system in
the United States is biased and that needs to be addressed quickly in order to
save the lives of many people.
Secondly, when you speak to government officials from other countries that
still execute people, what they always answer is, "Well, the U.S. leads the
world, it is the truest democracy and they still have the death penalty, so as
long as they do it, we will do it." So if there is some major change in the
United States, we can use it as leverage in the rest of the world.
MT: Let me add two arguments. As many have said, the United
States is the country of freedom, and we believe that strongly. And because it
is free, it is easier for us to develop our arguments and activities here. That
is why we are naturally pushed to the American part of our work. Also, when I
wrote my book, the first thing I wrote was "Dear American people, it is as
friends that we are writing to you." The United States has many close
friendships with Europeans and Americans can understand us.
JS: Personally, how did you get involved with this issue?
AD: I was working at Amnesty [International] as a campaigner
for North Africa, and part of that work was on the death penalty in Egypt. I had
to cover all these stories of women sentenced to death because they had killed
their husbands. Basically, these women had been abused or they had been forced
into marriage and wanted to divorce and couldn't, so it led to these awful
crimes. That is how I got interested in that issue because the death penalty was
not applied fairly at all.
MT: It was while I was working for a French organization called
the European League against Racism and Anti-Semitism. One day I was watching
television as thousands of French citizens protested the execution of Odelle
Barnes, Jr. I felt it was so shocking that in the United States there are so
many executions. And when I saw a French woman was defending and supporting him,
it was that the best proof to me of the globalization of human rights. The
struggle against the death penalty is a good synthesis of philosophy, thought,
and human rights activism.
JS: Are there other citizens' groups working on the death
penalty internationally, or is your group unique?
AD: There are many organizations out there with a large human
rights mandate, like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the
Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, and the death
penalty falls within the scope of their activities. These groups are active
mainly in terms of lobbying for legislation that reduces the scope of the death
penalty and/or abolishes it. And sometimes, they take up the cases of people who
are on death row and facing execution. There are also a number of very small
groups with a national or regional base that campaign on behalf of a single
death row inmate.
JS: Are groups in France or elsewhere in Europe working on cases in
places like Saudi Arabia?
AD: No. Another simple reason so much attention is focused on
the United States is because information is available. In Saudi Arabia, for
example, you would learn about someone on death row only after they have been
executed. So there is not much you can do aside from demand legislation. There
is no information available about trials, which are often held in secrecy, and
no one knows who is under a sentence of death. All you ever get is a news
release by the minister of the interior saying X or Y has been executed today.
JS: Could you give us a sense of the prevalence of the death
penalty worldwide, and where the United States stands relative to other
nations?
AD: 88% of all recorded executions take place in four
countries. They are, in order, China, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran.
JS: Empirically, is there a movement away from the death penalty
worldwide?
AD: I am not very good about figures but, twenty years ago,
about 36-40 countries had abolished the death penalty. Now there are about 100
who are no longer executing people. So that shows the trend. Before the Second
World War, Portugal and Belgium had not been executing since the 1850s. After
the war, the trend toward abolition and reducing the scope of the death penalty
has become more widespread. Take India, for example. There is a ruling from the
Indian Supreme Court that says the death penalty should only be applied to the
most serious crimes, which they define as only mass murders and sex offenders.
The only region that goes against this trend is Southeast Asia. At the last
meeting of ASEAN, the leaders of Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines said
they were in favor of the death penalty and especially for sentencing drug
traffickers to death. But that is the only region in the world that goes against
this trend
MT: There is a very interesting exception in Southeast Asia:
Cambodia. Cambodia abolished the death penalty and the president of the
parliament of Cambodia was in Strasbourg for the World Congress against the
Death Penalty last year. He explained that like Europe, Cambodia had experienced
genocide, and this was the main reason the Cambodians had decided to abolish the
death penalty.
In fact, in Europe, it was easier to abolish the death penalty because we had
two genocides, two world wars on our continent. It was after these debaucheries
of violence that Europe abolished it.
JS: Your suggestion that countries that have experienced genocide
are more likely to abolish the death penalty is interesting. In the United
States, many death penalty supporters argue that we particularly need the death
penalty for the mass murderers and others who commit crimes that 'shock the
conscience.' So there seem to be a contradiction.
AD: People who say that haven't experienced mass death taking
place in their own country and having to face it on an almost daily basis, the
situation where everybody has lost a relative or friend—it is a different
experience.
JS: How is the death penalty abolition movement affecting how the
European Union functions? Is it raising any new tensions?
AD: There is strong pressure on the EU from various groups and
organizations because now all foreign policy for European countries is done at
the EU level. So if you want something done about Malaysia or Senegal or
wherever, it's really on an EU level where you have to address it. NGOs and
churches are putting a lot of pressure on the EU, both on the Commission and the
Parliament.
JS: So does this affect, for example, how aid packages are put
together? Is there a direct connection between the death penalty and foreign
policy?
AD: It can have an effect since there is so much pressure on
the EU. One example happened with the Palestinian Authority. In the spring of
2001, the Palestinian Authority was executing people accused of spying on behalf
of Israel. The EU was very clear and said if you do not stop, we will stop
giving economic aid. The Palestinians stopped immediately. Same thing with the
Democratic Republic of Congo last April where the government was about to
execute four juveniles. There was a lot of campaigning and pressure on EU
officials. They intervened and the kids were not executed.
JS: What explains the popularity of the death penalty in the United
States, and what strategies have you adopted based on your analysis?
AD: There has not been enough public debate on the issue. It
has changed in the last couple of years, but, in the past, there was almost no
debate whatsoever in the press. The press just reported trials, sentences and
executions. Now you have more and more feature articles about innocent cases as
well as racial discrimination in the justice system, so there are the beginnings
of a discussion. Still, it's not enough. In my view, Americans favor the death
penalty because they haven't thought about what it means for them as individuals
and as citizens. I think people do not adequately appreciate that when a jury
passes a death sentence, it is as if they are participating in commission of a
homicide. A district attorney from Pennsylvania who I was on a panel with
yesterday kept saying that the death penalty makes sense because the United
States is the freest country in the world, and in exchange for that freedom, its
citizens have to agree not to kill others. But an execution is itself a killing.
In Texas, it used to be that when a prisoner was executed, the attending
doctor would list "legal homicide" as the cause of death. So the state
acknowledged it had committed a homicide, even if a legal homicide.
Now coming back to your question about why the strong support for the death
penalty in the United States .... It is mainly a question of education and
getting people to think about the implications: the violence inflicted on the
community and what that means in a republic.
JS: You seem to be saying, if only Americans thought a little bit
more about it, they would understand. But isn't it a question of moral
standpoints or of a different moral understanding of the world?
AD: It is true a lot people base their support for the death
penalty on the "eye for an eye" rule, which comes from the Bible. What is
surprising is that most of the churches here are against the death penalty, and
they don't get the word out to their constituencies. And they are one of the
moral authorities.
JS: As a foreign activist coming into the United States, where do
you see your role? What can you contribute to the different moral understandings
that exist?
AD: I think the public presentation and panel debate we had
yesterday at Dickinson College was very useful, and it should happen every day
all over the United States. As Michel mentioned, there has been a very close
friendship between the United States and Europe, and it's very important that at
all levels of society people can exchange their views on the death penalty.
MT: That is also why we have decided to organize a second World
Congress on the Death Penalty here in the United States, because if there is a
country in the world where you can have a world congress or a national congress,
it is in the United States. In fact, our strategy is not a moral strategy. I
think it is dangerous to emphasize moral aspects of the question, especially in
the United States because in considering ethical and moral questions, there is
more relativism here than in Europe. For me, it is not a question of morals. It
is a question of public debate and awareness, and they are not the same thing as
morals. Our strategy is to mobilize debate now so that in two years' time the
World Congress can become a focal point. The object of this Congress will be to
have international debates, but our goal is to always have American people in
the center of these debates, because, in fact, you are at the center of the
world.
JS: What strategies are you considering as your work progresses?
AD: People often say that Americans don't buy the moral or
rhetorical arguments in favor of abolishing capital punishment. But if they
begin interrogating themselves about what the death penalty means for the values
that made America and all those who came afterward, it could have an effect.
Everybody talks about deterrence and the costs, but it does not seem to be
working very well. So maybe it would be worth shifting the debate to the values
that made America.
MT: A sense of true justice is also related to history. These
things take time. Our experience, though, has been that wherever the public
begins actively debating the death penalty, it eventually is abolished.
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