Article Review
The United Nations along with other human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, denounce capital punishment, or what they also call “death penalty”. They consider it as “the ultimate denial of human rights”. The political reaction towards capital punishment seems to be, however, different. This is what Jerome Taylor comments on in his article for the Independent: “As the smoke clears after Saudi Arabia’s latest mass execution by firing squad Charles and Camilla fly in”.
According to the United Nations, the death penalty can be justified only in two “most serious” cases which are “the crime of murder or intentional killing”. And even for such crimes, the execution should take place “only after the most rigorous judicial process”, which was not the case with the recent execution of seven men in Saudi Arabia. Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced that Saudi Arabia “clearly violate(s) international safeguards in the use of the death penalty”.
The political side does not seem to be concerned with such instances. According to Taylor, the topics to be discussed during the Royal couple’s visit to Saudi Arabia do not include the human rights issue. Yet he states that the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East section, Eric Goldstein, maintains that Prince Charles should raise the issue of human rights during their visit saying: “We think everyone, every government, every third party that visits Saudi Arabia should make human rights a central part of the discussions with that country.” Indeed, this implies that torture can never be justified and that there must be a set of international limits prohibiting countries from conducting inhumane and unfair punishments to its criminals.
