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Human Rights at Home Blog
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World Day Against the Death Penalty

By humanrightsathome

Thursday, October 10, will mark the 17th annual World Day Against the Death Penalty.  This year, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty aims to use the day to highlight the impacts on children whose parents have been sentenced to death or executed.  In 2018, 20 countries around the world carried out executions, with the US among the top 10 executioners.  For ideas about how you can join efforts to abolish the death penalty in the US, click here.  

Though the fight against the death penalty is a long struggle, the news is not all bad.  On October 8, Oklahoma responded to advocates by agreeing to move “qualifying” death row prisoners out of solitary confinement.  While it remains to be seen how the state determines which inmates qualify, advocates anticipate that within days, most of these prisoners will be moved to units with more humane conditions, where they can see natural light and interact with other people. 

However, one step forward and two steps back  . . . in a blow to human rights activists, in July, the Trump Administration announced that it was reinstating the death penalty for federal prisoners.  Five people are scheduled for executions in December 2019 and January 2o20 — the first federal executions since 1983.