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Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 31 January 2007 - Brussels OJ edition

Moratorium on the death penalty (debate)
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  Elena Valenciano Martínez-Orozco (PSE). – (ES) Madam President, yesterday, Robert Wilson, of 24 years of age, was sentenced to death by a jury in New York. This is the first death sentence to be handed down in that State for 50 years.

This is another tragic example of the current threat to the universal values that we are all defending here today, despite the very significant progress that has been made in countries such as Liberia, Mexico, the Philippines and Moldova.

We must, however, continue to fight to ensure that others, such as China, with around two thousand official executions per year – eight thousand, according to unofficial data – join the global moratorium and suspend their executions.

We must support Iranian civil society, which is rising up against the death penalty. Iran has one of the highest numbers of executions: 177 in 2006. Furthermore, it has broken the moratorium on stonings and it currently has six women sentenced to death by stoning.

Above all, we appeal to the United States, a country whose decisions have an immense impact on global politics, to support the Italian initiative to establish a universal moratorium on the death penalty which will be approved – with this Parliament's support, I hope – in the United Nations General Assembly.

As other speakers have said here today, the moratorium is a first essential step towards abolition. This is probably one of the most important challenges facing the human race at the beginning of this century.

 
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