These images (they're both in the public domain) are no more than samples, possible contributions to the repertoire of campaigning techniques - to a survey of campaigning techniques - for use against the death penalty. Other images, of other cities, can also be used. The choice is depressingly wide.

Cities are obviously important units, the focus of pride and prestige, the focus of attempts to gain prestige, which are often more important than the national. Cities try to obtain prestige by trying to become a 'European city of culture,' by hosting sporting events, by having festivals, in all sorts of ways, some of them valuable, to an extent, some of them idiotic and futile. This is the case even in centralized countries such as France. In some other countries, regional differences are so strong that some cities are almost capitals in themselves.

The Necropolis initiatev is an attempt to tarnish the image of some cities, to lower their standing in the opinion of civilized people. A 'Necropolis,' or 'City of Death,' is a city in which the jurisdiction applies the death penalty in law or practice. I adopt Amnesty International's reasonable stance that a jurisdiction which hasn't carried out an execution in the last ten years is de facto abolitionist.

On my last visit to Venice, I saw on some of the water buses there, in large letters, the words 'Venice. City of Life,' and 'Venice, city against the death penalty.' This initiative, a remarkable, a wonderful one, was promoted by the Community of Sant' Egidio and the municipality. The Community of Sant' Egidio has also promoted a 'Cities for Life' initiative, of cities which have declared that they oppose the death penalty. This 'Cities of Death Initiative' I see as a natural development of the City of Life Initiative, although it's certain, I think, that the Community of Sant' Egidio wouldn't agree.

Singapore was the first city I 'nominated' as a Necropolis.. Its execution rate per hundred thousand inhabitants is very high, the highest in the world, in fact. People are routinely executed for offences other than murder. Some years ago, I emailed the Thinkcentre in Singapore, and what I wrote is still on their site:

"Your web site is magnificent - one which does the ThinkCentre great credit. Singapore is known worldwide for its technical expertise, the financial ability to be found there, in general as a place of achievement. It is also known as a place with a particularly high execution rate relative to population, a place where people are still hanged by the neck until they are dead. In a world where so many countries have already abolished the death penalty, or never use it, this is a shocking fact.

The arguments against the death penalty are many - for example, the fact that it is not a proven deterrent, the dangers of executing the innocent, and not least its dehumanizing brutality.

You have performed a great service by bringing the issue into the open and by doing your utmost to stimulate debate - but in my experience, the detailed arguments of abolitionists are not met by honest attempts on the part of retentionists to counter all those arguments.

Instead the debate is largely one-sided. And so, we are still waiting for the United States authorities to put forward a reasoned argument for the execution of juvenile offenders - if they can.

Your response to the 'Cities for Life' initiative of the Community of Sant' Egidio in Rome was marked by great generosity of spirit, the same generosity of spirit which inspired that day of remembrance and action.

Your contribution to vibrant intellectual and political life in Singapore is a very noteworthy one."

The second city was San Francisco. California has the largest death row in the United States and the death penalty is applied. San Quentin penitentiary, where the executions take place, is not too far from San Francisco. Some states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, abolished the death penalty a very long time ago, in the middle of the nineteenth century - long before this country. The death penalty is still applied in federal law, which applies to all the states, but there's no reason at all to draw attention to Detroit, Michigan, as a 'City of Death.' Far better to focus attention on the very large numbers of more deserving candidates: Miami, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Beijing, China; Tehran, Iran; Lahore, Pakistan, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and countless others.

Some cities in death penalty jurisdictions, such as Dallas, Texas, Austin, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio took part in the 'Cities for Life, Cities against the Death Penalty' initiative of the Community of Sant' Egidio. These are excluded from the 'Cities of Death' initiative.

In time, I hope it will be quite common for some people to refer, not to Seattle, but to 'Necropolis-Seattle,' not to Dallas but to 'Necropolis-Dallas,' and so on for the other death penalty cities, or if not to describe the cities in this way, to think of 'Necropolis' when these cities are mentioned.

Stalin, Goering and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger - astonishing facts

It's astonishing to discover impulses to humanity in two of the worst monsters of the Twentieth Century, Stalin and Goering, and no impulses to humanity - in one sense - in someone who is an affront to civilized values but who probably doesn't rate as a monster at all: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California.

Stalin, surely the second greatest monster of the Twentieth Century, after Hitler, abolished the death penalty in the Soviet Union on 26 May 1947. (Richard J Evans, 'Rituals of Retribution,' Page 806. Also mentioned in Solzhenitsyn, 'The Gulag Archipelago 1,' Page 439.) The death penalty was replaced with a maximum term of imprisonment of 25 years. The law didn't apply in occupied Germany, but even here, "the Soviet Military Administration in Germany declared its extreme reluctance to pass or carry out death sentences from this moment on." (Evans, Page 806.) The death penalty was reintroduced in 1951 for treason and espionage. It wasn't restored for murder until 1954, after Stalin's death.

This is a striking demonstration, I think, of the power of tradition and history, not of Stalin's humanity. For long after the death penalty was abolished in the United Kingdom, there were calls to reintroduce it, particularly in England. The long period of legal neck-stretchings entered into popular consciousness. Now, though, the calls to 'bring back the rope' are far fewer and weaker, aided, perhaps, by high-profile cases in which the wrong person was sentenced, even executed. In the United States, a country with a much weaker sense of tradition and a much shorter history, this particular tradition is still strong, though. Only the method of execution has changed - instead of the call to 'fry the bastards,' the call to 'inject the bastards.' But Russia has a very long history of abolishing the death penalty and opposing it. See the information in the 'Admiration' section of this page, about the Empress Elizabeth, who in the middle of the 18th century never once made use of the death penalty. The Empress Catherine made no use of the death penalty for non-political offences. Solzhenitsyn: '...the yielding up of one's God-given life because others, sitting in judgment, have so voted simply did not take place in our country even for crimes of state for an entire half century - from Pugachev to the Decembrists.' [that is, from 1775-1825] In Tsarist times, the death penalty was used very sparingly. When the Provisional Government came to power after the Russian Revolution, it abolished the death penalty completely, reinstated and abolished again in 1920. Stalin had this tradition and history to draw upon.

Goering, when he became Minister-President under Hitler, took on the prerogative of mercy in Prussia. It's an extraordinary fact that when the condemned had been sentenced to death for any length of time, he hesitated about allowing the execution to take place:

'Goering, a man not generally known for his sensitivity to human suffering, indeed went on to grant reprieves to a number of these prisoners, precisely on this ground; a telling contrast to the equanimity with which other judicial authorities, in other places and at other times, have regarded the confinement of condemned prisoners on death row not for months, but for years, while awaiting a final decision on whether they should live or die.' (Richard J Evans, 'Rituals of Retribution,' Page 642.)

To await death for any length of time seemed to Goering intolerable. On 5 May 1933, Goering pointed out

'that in all the cases which are now before me, it is extraordinarily difficult to allow justice to take its course after the condemned, as a result of the uncertainty under which they have already been labouring, some of them for an extraordinarily long time [this was perhaps a year or two, not two decades or more, as it so often is and has been in the United States], have in any case had to undergo spiritual martyrdom.'

Compare this with...

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, who denied clemency to Clarence Ray Allen, who had been on death row for - 23 years! Justice Stephen Breyer had earlier filed a dissent, pointing out that the man had not only been on death row for 23 years but 'is 76 years old, blind, suffers from diabetes and is confined to a wheelchair.' So, Clarence Ray Allen went to his death. As did Stanley "Tookie" Williams, also refused clemency by the Governor. This execution led to outrage in the Governor's native Austria - he has dual American and Austrian nationality - outrage which is very much to the Austrians' credit.

Environmentalists, green campaigners - and I'm one of them myself, but with critical tendencies - will support Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to curb emissions, to minimize the contribution California makes to climate change. He has already shown leadership of a high order. But even if environmental protection is one of the most important of all issues, there are issues of humanity and human decency which are also amongst the most important of all issues. If, in twenty years, all Californians are riding in electric vehicles, vehicles powered by biofuel, if Californians are recycling, reusing, reducing the products they use on an unprecedented scale, but the killing centre at San Quentin is still in operation, then the state will still be grotesquely at fault.

I don't have a cynical attitude to all politicians. Of course, they vary enormously in vision and competence, but I know just how many are outstanding - and just how many are mediocre. To focus attention only on these two issues, a sizeable proportion of the public are indifferent to environmental issues, and in this country as in the USA are indifferent to the death penalty or support it. There are many, many politicians who are not indifferent.

There are those politicians who had, and have, the power of clemency in death-penalty jurisdictions who have refused to lend their support to the machinery of death.

Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian who played a leading part in the campaign to abolish the death penalty in this country (he was under sentence of death himself during the Spanish Civil War) wrote in his book 'Hanged by the Neck:' 'There is a poisoned spray coming from the Old Bailey [where many of the death sentences were passed] which corrupts and depraves; it can be stopped only by abolishing its cause, the death penalty itself. Two centuries ago, visitors to this country were puzzled to find the road to London dotted with grisly gibbets. They are still puzzled by the same contradiction between the Englishman's belief in the necessity of hanging and his proverbial virtues of toleration to man, kindness to animals, fussing over plants and birds. They fail to understand the power of tradition, his reluctance to abandon any of his cherished prejudices.

'Tradition has a hypnotic effect which commands blind belief, an instinctive recoil from any new departure as a 'dangerous experiment', and an unwillingness to listen to reasoned argument.'

I share Arthur Koestler's view that the death penalty is almost a form of moral pollution, in effect, that not all pollution consists of chemicals and radiation. In this sense, then, I think of San Francisco and Singapore as polluted cities, like all the other 'Cities of Death.'

I'm completely aware that there are other facets, other aspects which would show these cities, and others, in a far more favourable light.

Poetry

It would be completely fair to say that so far, poetry hasn't played a major part in campaigning against the death penalty. Wordsworth wrote sonnets in favour of the death penalty (these are despicable, in their sentiments and in their quality as poetry) - although the poetry of Wordsworth, the earlier poetry of Wordsworth, means as much or more to me than any other).

This poem of mine, a sarcastic one, was published not long ago by the University of Sheffield's literary magazine, 'Route 57.' It's given here simply as a small contribution to attacking the reputation of the USA (whose contribution to scholarship, to the arts, to science and technology, whose natural beauties and help to this country in war and peace I gratefully - and completely without sarcasm - also acknowledge.)

Death and a Salesman

Sure, gas has its advantages, but it reeks.

Have you ever thought about the danger of leaks?

Basically, gas and injections are just chemicals,

and we should cut down on chemicals,

you agree? Pollution has to be Public Enemy #1

- along with crime, lefties, the Theory of Evolution, and so on.

Electricity’s no better - anything but clean.

Like using electric shocks in loony bins - I mean!

It may seem modern but it’s too much hassle.

No, true sophistication is to use the best of the past.

Have you considered a method based on renewable resources,

cost-effective, with, worldwide, thousands of satisfied customers?

That’s why the penitentiary should use hanging, Warden.

The rope-makers of America say, ‘Go, Go, Go Hempen!’

Admiration and appreciation

These are some of the people and organizations that deserve our gratitude, and some of the countries which come out well.

San Marino, and other countries which are abolitionist for all crimes, or for ordinary crimes

Some of the smallest states have the most cause for pride, For example, San Marino(last known execution: 1468!). The Rough Guide to Italy takes a dismissive attitude to San Marino, claiming it 'trades on its falsely-preserved autonomy.' But this distinct jurisdiction hasn't executed for so many centuries. In humanitarian history, San Marino has importance out of all proportion to its size. Liechtenstein too (last execution: 1785). Monaco (last execution 1847). But also larger states: Iceland (last execution: 1830). Portugal (last known execution: 1849). Venezuela (death penalty abolished 1863). Compare with the United Kingdom (last execution: 1964) or France (last execution: 1977).

Israel abolished the death penalty when it became a state. It made one exception - in my terminology, practised limitation in the case of Adolf Eichmann (executed 1962.) I'm in full agreement with the Israelis' decision to execute him. A state which defends itself against suicide bombers without recourse to the death penalty, (unlike, for example, Kuwait, which recently sentenced a woman, a failed suicide bomber to death) is entitled to our admiration. This is not to overlook its faults, but the faults of this country - a democracy with a free press - are far, far less than those of a country such as Saudi Arabia or Iran.

American achievement in opposing the death penalty

The states which abolished the death penalty at an early stage: Michigan (1847), Rhode Island (1852) Wisconsin (1853). Compare the United Kingdom (last execution 1964).

The people and organizations active in opposing the death penalty in the USA - very numerous, and very, very impressive. I'm familiar with a large number of these, but obviously not all. The Death Penalty Information Center gives a comprehensive list of US organizations and their Web sites, as well as of organizations outside the USA, at:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=547
&scid=37#Int%27l/Nat%27l

Malawi, and other countries which are abolitionist in practice

Malawi is one of the countries which is abolitionist in practice: 'Countries that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes such as murder but can be considered abolitionist in practice in that they have not executed anyone during the past 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions.' (Amnesty International, http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-abolitionist3-eng)

Years ago, I wrote a letter about the death penalty to a politician in Malawi, the then Minister of Education, and the reply was so heartening that I quote it here:

Dear Mr Hurt,

Thank you for your letter of 9th February. I am encouraged greatly by your kind remarks about the situation in Malawi.

We were indeed very fortunate that Malawi experienced such a peaceful transition from a vicious one-party dictatorship to a multi-party democracy. It was partly because we were convinced that some of the people who had been sentenced to death were not really guilty of the offences that we commuted all death sentences on the president's inauguration day in May 1994.

The death sentence however has not yet been formally abolished in this country. The matter was discussed extensively during the recent Constitutional Conference and the delegates decided to retain it. This decision ties up the hands of the government, much against its own will. We are only hoping that with civic education the body of public opinion will swing towards the abolition of the death sentence.

You can rest assured however that no executions have taken place since the new government took over.

Yours faithfully,

Sam Mpasu MP
Minister of Education

Like Malawi, a large number of the countries on this list are poor - it includes Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Niger amongst others.

Cesare Beccaria (1738 - 1794), the author of 'On Crimes and Punishments' (Dei lelitti e delle pene) is magnificent, astonishing, and his work had an incalculable effect, wholly for the good. At a time when the criminal justice systems in almost all countries were hideously barbaric, he cut through all the traditional arguments and traditional complacency, and attacked the death penalty and other abuses. From section XXVIII, on the death penalty: 'This vain profusion of punishments, which has never made men better, has moved me to inquire whether capital punishment is truly useful and just in a well-organized state...In order to be just, a penalty should have only the degree of intensity needed to deter other men from crime...If anyone should cite against me the example of practically all ages and nations, which have assigned the death penalty to certain crimes, I shall reply that the example is annihilated in the presence of truth, against which there is no prescription, and that human history leaves us with the impression of a vast sea of errors in which a few confused and widely scattered truths are floating.'

If he had confined himself to attacking the death penalty, this would have been an enormous achievement, but his humanitarianism was very broadly based and deserves to be mentioned here. From the introduction to 'On Crimes and Punishments' (Hackett edition, translated by David Young):

'The criminal justice systems of Europe in the eighteenth century were open to criticism on a number of counts. There was often cruelty in the investigation and punishment of crime. Judicial torture was frequently used, and the death penalty was common even for relatively minor crimes. Almost everywhere, the law reflected the common assumption that political loyalty and good behavior were best secured by religious uniformity. Reliance on tradition and ancient custom tended to reinforce the powers of local courts and parochial elites...and to circumscribe the central authority of the state. In most countries, equality before the law was not recognized, even in principle; different rules applied to different levels of the social hierarchy. The law's vagueness, contradictions, and wide scope for interpretation and discretion tended to reinforce the personal dependence of the disadvantaged on those with inherited property and authority.' Beccaria wrote against all these abuses, and his writing had a dramatic impact. It should be read, and remembered, with gratitude.

German writers and politicians such as Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier (1787 - 1867), described by Richard J Evans as 'the nineteenth century's most influential critic of the death penalty.' 'Mittermaier had already published articles on the subject over a number of years, during which he had steadily worked his way round to a whole-hearted opposition to the death penalty. In 1840 he brought his researches together in a powerful indictment of capital punishment...Mittermaier demonstrated statistically that the reduction or abolition of capital punishment, wherever it had occurred, had not led to any noticeable increase in capital offences. On the other hand, the threat of the death penalty led to many acquittals by courts whose members had been reluctant to use it. With these arguments, Mittermaier not only moved the argument about capital punishment onto a new intellectual plane, but also placed himself at the head of the growing movement to abolish the death penalty in Germany.'

Erich Koch-Weser (1875 -1944) was ' a committed opponent of the death penalty for murder, and on 13 June 1928 he won the backing of his party for a bill to abolish capital punishment.' Although the death penalty remained in force, in 1928 and 1929, there were no executions anywhere in Germany. Koch-Weser 'had issued a circular to all governments in the federated states advising them not to carry out any executions until the new Criminal Code had been voted into effect by the Reichstag.'

French creative writers

- a few of them, that is - have been at variance with a state which continued to execute until as late as 1977.

Victor Hugo

This information is taken from a report in the newspaper of Georgetown University (Washington D.C.). http://www.thehoya.com/news/092002/news7.cfm

The French senator and former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter (he was very closely involved in the movement that finally ended the death penalty in France and also has a place in this section) spoke to honour Victor Hugo's opposition to the death penalty.

' "While Hugo is renowned for his literary genius, the French writer also had a lifelong opposition to the death penalty" He began by noting that Hugo was a man who, unlike many other people, became less conservative with age.

'Hugo's approach to fighting the death penalty was different from both those who preceded him and his contemporaries, in Badinter's view.

'Hugo went beyond the use of intellectual discussion to make his point. "He decided that he would put the reader in the condition of a man who was sentenced to death and is waiting for his execution," Badinter said. An example of this is Hugo's novel The Last Day of the Condemned.

'Literature, however, was not Hugo's only means of expression. Whenever he found out that an execution was to take place or if someone ever requested his help, Hugo immediately took action by giving speeches and writing letters. Badinter said Hugo came to the aid of American abolitionist John Brown when he was sentenced to death.

'What made Hugo's efforts so remarkable, according to Badinter, is the continuity of his struggle. His work was constant and always done with passion. Badinter said that Hugo never had doubts about his position, even when the person sentenced had committed atrocious crimes. "For me, the assassin is no longer an assassin, the arsonist no longer an arsonist, and the thief no longer a thief. He is a quivering human being who is about to die," Badinter said while quoting Hugo's work.

'Later in Hugo's life, he became a senator...His final political move was presenting a proposal for abolishing the death penalty in which he wrote, "happy is he of whom it one day may be said in leaving this world he took with him the death penalty."'

Albert Camus

Two quotations from his 'Reflections on the Guillotine,' (1957):
'An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.'

'[The] reply is as old as man; it is called the law of retaliation. Whoever has done me harm must suffer harm; whoever has put out my eye must lose an eye; and whoever has killed must die. This is an emotion, and a particularly violent one, not a principle. Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature. If murder is in the nature of man, the law is not intended to imitate or reproduce that nature. It is intended to correct it."

English scholars and journalists

As regards the death penalty, England's record is far, far better than America's. I don't give here the exact dates, but the significant dates are much earlier in England than in America for: the last execution (not yet achieved in America, of course), the last public execution, the last execution for offences other than murder, such as armed robbery or rape, the last execution of a juvenile offender. (The state of Virginia marked the new millennium by executing two juvenile offenders.) A similar comparison shows that England's record is far, far worse than the record of many other countries. Some English people, against the general trend, have done a great deal to oppose the death penalty, or to shed light on the death penalty. For example, some English scholars have written books which are very significant:

Rituals of Retribution: capital punishment in Germany 1600 - 1987 by Richard J. Evans. The author writes that "The past, as the famous opening to L.P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between says, is a foreign country; they do things differently there. By visiting this foreign country we can enlarge our conception of what it means to be human, and perhaps gain a better understanding of the limits and possibilities of the human condition. One of the aims of this book, therefore, is to restore a sense of strangeness to the past. We have to make an imaginative leap of understanding by which to comprehend mentalities which present-day Europeans may find at first encounter repulsive and bizarre."

This is an astonishing book, a very important contribution to 'humanitarian history.' Reading this book hasn't been, as it were, a matter of duty, simply to make me better informed about the death penalty. It certainly does that - it's massively informative - but it's also so engrossing and readable that I've found myself reading it and rereading it at very frequent intervals. It contains astounding information. I've quoted some of it on this page. Brief comments on the book from the Publisher's catalogue:

http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198219682

The Hanging Tree: execution and the English people 1770 - 1868 by V.A.C. Gatrell. I fully agree with the comment on the cover: "This gripping study is essential reading for anyone interested in the processes which have 'civilized' our social life...Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and compelling in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present." The author writes, "Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English people were very familiar with the grimy business of hanging. This is so large a social fact separating this era from our own that although it is not the most obvious way of defining modern times, it must be one of them...What they watched was horrific. There was no nice calculation of body weights and lengths of drop in those days; few died cleanly. Kicking their bound legs, many choked over minutes." (Page 6, 7.)

The record of English journalists of the present is generally better than the record of English journalists of the past - although one of these, David Astor, gave unstinting support to the campaign of Arthur Koestler and others to have the death penalty abolished. Some journalists have declared their opposition to the death penalty only very occasionally, or on one single occasion: the surprise, the heartening surprise, is all the stronger for that. Philip Hensher is a novelist as well as a journalist - and a writer who has great gifts in portraying cataclysmic events and the abysses of the mind (as his wonderful piece 'Brandy' shows.) He has only written about the death penalty once, so far as I know, but on that occasion he wrote that he wouldn't travel to the USA, as a country that inflicted the death penalty. Melanie Phillips has written at some length to oppose the death penalty (when a Conservative politician, David Davis, made known his support for the death penalty) but is far better known as a commentator who is, let's say, not at all left-wing, a reminder that on this issue, the left wing has no monopoly of decency at all.

Pope John Paul II and the Roman Catholic Church

I'm an atheist, and a militant atheist, but I don't reluctantly agree, if I'm forced to, that theistic opponents can show humanity, I warmly admire their humanity. The present-day Roman Catholic Church is a very important opponent of the death penalty world-wide, and in the United States, a far more religious country than this, is particularly significant. Again and again, Catholic bishops, priests and laity have supported the abolitionist cause and their contribution is beyond praise. During his lifetime, Pope John Paul II was tireless in opposing the death penalty and in calling for clemency for people facing execution.

Amnesty International

Peter Benenson founded Amnesty International in 1961. His contribution to human rights campaigning is incalculable, of course, but it's cause for intense disappointment that he didn't include the death penalty in his work. What gave him the impetus to start the organization was a newspaper report about two Portuguese students during the Salazar dictatorship. They had been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for making a toast to freedom, a shocking matter. But in the matter of the death penalty, Portugal was the advanced country - it hadn't executed anybody for a hundred years - and Britain was the backward one. Britain's last executions were in 1964. It was some years before Amnesty International began to work against the death penalty. Since then, its contribution has been magnificent. Amongst many other achievements, it has documented the grim and harrowing facts - tragic lives, botched executions, the minutiae of international legislation, the heartening or depressing contemporary history of the death penalty in very small as well as very large states, virtually all aspects of this shameful practice. Amnesty International's death penalty work is still one of the things it does best, but now Amnesty International gives it less prominence and more prominence, I think, to issues where Amnesty International isn't nearly as impressive.

Campaigning techniques

Amnesty International, one of the most important of all opponents of the death penalty (as well as the most important human rights organization in the world) only uses a selection of campaigning techniques, arguments and methods of persuasion: inevitable and acceptable, to a large extent. Amnesty has its own ethos, its identity, which places a limitation on using some methods. But some of the campaign techniques, arguments and methods of persuasion which it does use are demonstrably ineffectual, or not as effective as could be wished.

I've written extensively about campaigning methods. Amongst other things, I advocate campaigning methods which

(1) make more use of the the public domain. Of course, Amnesty letters or emails, or those of other organizations, will always have a place. But a letter, email or (ridiculous thought) text message to a Governor or to the President of the United States is received in private and often dismissed out of hand in private. In the public realm there's at least the possibility that the person addressed will be 'shown up,' will have their standing lowered, even if they're not receptive. There are recipients who are quite receptive to arguments, and recipients who are anything but receptive. Shaming may work where arguments don't, even if there's no guarantee of that.

(2) are continuing in their effects rather than temporary. A demonstration, a vigil, other events of this kind may cause embarrassment, may exert some sort of pressure - but they're forgotten very quickly. Far better to forge a continuing linkage between a person, an institution, a city or a country with backwardness, barbarism, an image totally different from the image they would prefer to present.

(3) I also favour indirect means as well as direct means of publicizing the issue and imposing pressure. 'Direct campaigning' (not to be confused with 'direct action') is campaigning directed at those who are responsible for the death penalty in some way, such as governments, presidents, prime ministers, attorney generals, members of Pardons and Parole Boards.Such people are opinion-formers, to a greater or lesser extent, but not the only opinion formers. As in war, undermining the morale of opponents, making opponents feel that they no longer have right on their side, that their position is untenable, is important. One obvious place where the battle of ideas can be conducted is the university sphere. Amnesty International could supply posters giving information about the death penalty in the USA, China, Singapore and other death-penalty countries. The posters would be seen by staff and students from these countries. The Necropolis Initiative is mainly intended to be an indirect method of campaigning.

I was a death penalty co-ordinator for my local Amnesty group for about fifteen years. During that time, I was asked time and time again to write to the Texas Board of Pardons - which never recommended clemency to the prisoner about to be executed - to ask the board members for clemency, or to write to Governors of States with pleas for clemency - although it's been said that some of these Governors would have their own grandmother executed if that was needed for them to remain in power. A thought experiment - if Amnesty International had been in existence throughout the Nazi era, would Amnesty have recommended writing letters beginning, "Dear Herr Hitler, I am very concerned about the plight of X, sentenced to death for making a joke about yourself...and ending, 'I call for his unconditional release.' Probably, Amnesty would have. Using this approach with such ruthless people would be completely futile. It's an admirable thing to fight against overwhelming odds but there's also such a thing as not wasting your time and not wasting a stamp.

I'm not a member of Amnesty International any longer and now I'm able to choose from a greater range of campaigning techniques and to try out new methods, or advocate their trying out. Not just an expanded repertoire of campaigning techniques but a repertoire of styles - including styles which are confrontational, which directly confront the supporters of the death penalty. Fellow campaigners - or anyone - feel free to object and disagree.

This is taken from the page on bullfighting on this site, adapting the passage slightly.

In campaigning, I think it's essential to distinguish two things: (1) The most effective techniques to win. This will often demand short, vivid messages and simple slogans. It will often demand arguments presented very briefly, and action which is concentrated rather than diffuse, ruthless in spirit rather than genteel, but action which keeps within the law. In a democracy, it may be necessary to break the law if that seems the only way to end a serious abuse, but the most effective actions for opposing the death penalty don't require the law to be broken, I'm sure. (Where the opponent is a totalitarian power, as in the occupied countries of Europe during the Second World War, then the use of violence and force can be justified.)
(2) The reasoning which underlies the action. This should not be simple. It should be comprehensive (covering all relevant aspects of the subject rather than a few), fair-minded (taking every care to avoid distortions of reality, taking note of possible objections), sophisticated in moral argument and, also, factually correct.

However, it's sometimes difficult to separate the two. The ideas which seem vastly more forceful, developed, persuasive than the opposing ideas are amongst the most important contributions to activism. They're a precondition for activism, or should be. One of the most striking demonstrations comes from the history of penal reform, on which the Italian thinker Beccaria has had an incalculable influence. Beccaria's achievement is amongst other things a massive practical achievement - concrete reforms can be traced back to his work - but these were due purely to his ideas. He had none of the attributes of an activist. The introduction to his work 'On Crimes and Punishments' in the Hackett edition describes the work as 'greater than its self-effacing author, a man of almost crippling shyness.'

Amnesty International doesn't always distinguish sufficiently between (1) and (2). It tends to use the methods of reasoned argument which are part of (2) as a campaigning tactic, for the purposes of (1). It may often be more effective to clearly separate the two activities. As I've noted earlier, not all recipients of pleas from Amnesty members are susceptible of reasoned argument (or capable of reasoned argument). People who have the power to change things may be very unlikely to change things because they may have too much to lose. A governor in a death penalty state may not be re-elected). People whose livelihood depends upon administering or carrying out the death penalty may lose their livelihood. Or there may be strong psychological reasons why they should not be open to rational argument. They may lose their self-respect. To acknowledge that the death penalty is wrong could well bring with it the burden of guilt, feelings of inadequacy and worse. This is why methods of campaigning based on rational arguments, which will always be necessary (for more on this, see the section below), have to be supplemented by other methods.

'The danger of executing the damaged'

 

Rational arguments

A letter I wrote to the Amnesty Journal. It appears in the page {disproportion} but I give it here rather than providing a link:

'In the November/December 97 issue of AMNESTY, in which there was a very welcome article by Pierre Sane opposing capital punishment, there was also a letter by Sylvia Callaghan, practising Christian, member of Amnesty International and supporter of the death penalty (or, in her words, "not opposed to the death penalty.")

Unfortunately, she gave no arguments or information in the letter as published to justify her support. It does seem overwhelmingly common for supporters of the death penalty to avoid the tiresome little matter of providing actual arguments and evidence.

The contrast with opponents of the death penalty could hardly be greater. There is a complete disproportion here. I have been a death penalty co-ordinator for some years. In that time, I have received from Amnesty International a large number of documents and urgent action appeals. These have given reasoned arguments and an enormous amount of detailed information about the sentencing to death of the innocent, the mentally ill, those who experienced hideous cruelty as children, those who were too poor to obtain the lawyers who could have secured a lesser penalty - and about so many other aspects of this degrading inhumanity. (They have also shown great concern for the victims of violent crime and their relatives and have made clear the need to punish crime adequately.) There are also, of course, many books which give reasons for opposing capital punishment.

Where are all the books and articles in favour of the death penalty which demonstrate that it protects society more than alternative punishments, which honestly address such issues as the execution of the innocent, the mentally ill and the abused - and the brutality of the process even if the person concerned belongs to none of these special groups?

|In our death penalty work, I am sure that we ought to make clear this disproportion, that we ought to set a challenge to supporters of the death penalty, and to those directly responsible for carrying out executions: justify, if you can, your support and your acts.'

Morons

Of course, the supporters of the death penalty include people who have given sustained thought to the issue. But supporters of the death penalty include too a disproportionate number of morons, head-cases, people who've never had an intelligent thought in their lives, perhaps. If you disagree, by all means do the research, trawl the internet for pro-death penalty views, and draw what conclusions you like. You could do worse than starting with this page, where supporters of the death penalty for juveniles argue with opponents of the death penalty:

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-255230.html

It isn't my bias which makes me conclude that here, the opponents use arguments which are vastly more sophisticated and serious than the supporters. It's time that supporters of the death penalty became vastly better informed. If they became vastly better informed, they might well be converted into opponents of the death penalty. On the page whose address is given above, for instance, we find the common misconception that executing someone saves the cost of imprisoning them for the rest of their lives. In the USA, of course, the cost of imprisonment for life is much cheaper than the cost of executing.