In The Light Of The Execution Of The Bali Bomber And The Concerns For Three People Of The Bali Mine Facing A Similar Fate, Should The Death Penalty Be Enforced?

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Last year the Age, published an article “Death divide the world” which reported about the capital punishment of the Bali bombers. In a split second, it aroused a “death penalty” storm in the world, people were disputing “should the death penalty be enforced?” Personally I disagree with any act to put people to death whoever they are, and whatsoever they have done wrong. Adhering to this principle, I’m strongly against the death penalty in any circumstance.

Can some one tell me what is violence? If someone punches you, smacks you and even more kills you for whatever reason is, are those behaviours violence?   I believe we all agree that violence is horrendous, but is by punishing people through execution a form of violence? According to the universal declaration of human rights-article 5, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” So I want to say is the DP is definitely a from of violence.

My second reason of abolishing the DP is because of the mischarge of justice. Does any one know how many people have suffered from the wrongful execution in the world? 2,693 people, also 505 people were sentenced to death. Furthermore, those numbers are just what have been confirmed, which means the facts are more than those.   In 1978, the last legally executed person in Australia is Ronald Ryan, who was charged as murder that shooting a guard while escaping from Australian Pentridge Prison, however 19 years later, the guard who was on duty at that time admitted that he fired at Ryan and believed he shot and killed the guard. The reason that he kept silence at Ryan’s trial was because firstly he didn’t want to get into trouble, secondly was he didn’t think Ryan would actually be executed.  

Apart from the above, my third argument, is from the article “All executions are a failure of justice” written by Julian McMahon who is one of several Melbourne barristers. When he last met...