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GENEVA (AFP) - The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has condemned execution by lethal injection, practiced by 34 out of 50 U.S. states, in a report on the death penalty received on Sunday. It said attempts by the U.S. to "humanize" the execution process by favoring injections over electrocution or hanging merely prolong the "torture". "Locating a suitable vein has, in several cases, prolonged the execution process by over an hour. Lethal injections are often inserted by non-medical, inexperienced correctional personnel since doctors are prohibited from participating in executions except to announce death," the report said. "Awaiting death is a form of psychological torture evidenced by the fact that mock executions ... are a common torture tactic. It is cruel and inhuman," the ICJ said. The Commission also denounced judicial errors, the existence of death rows, and the execution of people who committed crimes as minors or who are known to be mentally ill. The ICJ said that despite the U.S. Supreme Court's mandate that mental disorders may be presented to juries as mitigating factors, "34 adults and juvenile offenders known to be mentally retarded were executed up to 1999," according to figures provided by the human rights group, Amnesty International. And it added that despite the elaborate review process for capital cases in the U.S., there have been "80 documented cases of innocent people who have been wrongly sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit." The Commission also made reference to the apparent racial bias in the administration of capital punishment in the U.S. "Strikingly, of the 500 people executed between 1976 and the end of 1998, 81% were convicted for crimes involving white victims despite the fact that about half of U.S. murder victims are black," the ICJ said. The non-governmental organization added that 75% of criminals executed in the U.S. for crimes committed while they were minors "were people of color." The organization, which promotes understanding and observance of the rule of law as well as the legal protection of human rights throughout the world, also criticized other countries in its latest report. It highlighted problems in the justice system of several Muslim countries that apply Islamic Shariah law, and Russia where it said "organized criminals and hired assassins have escaped the death penalty and even prosecution, while less powerful offenders have been shot." Based in Geneva, the ICJ has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO), the Organization of African Unity, and the Council of Europe. |
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