June 26, 2000
EUROPE SEEKS TO CONVERT U.S. ON DEATH PENALTY EXECUTIONS ERODE ROLE AS MORAL LEADER, MANY ACTIVISTS SAY
ROME -- The night after Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois, Rome's Colosseum was bathed in celebratory golden lights, courtesy of a coalition of death penalty opponents backed by the city's electric power company. The symbolism might not strike precisely the right note. In an earlier time, Romans lit the Colosseum by dipping prisoners in tar and setting them ablaze. But the modern illumination of the ruins each time a death sentence is commuted or overturned has become one of the more visible manifestations of Europe's growing revulsion over the high level of support in the United States for executions. Unlike the U.S., where the debate is framed in terms of whether capital punishment can be applied fairly across the board, European activists generally take an absolutist position. They view the death penalty as a systematic and grotesque violation of human rights. "In all cases and in all circumstances, we believe the taking of life is the ultimate violation of the right to life," said Karen Hooper of Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights group. The death penalty largely vanished from the European continent during the latter half of the 20th Century. Renouncing the death penalty is a requisite for membership in the European Union. The United States, on the other hand, joins Yugoslavia, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and some other countries often included on the U.S. State Department's list of human-rights abusers. Yugoslavia is the only European country with the death penalty. For years, Europeans have listened to America lecture the rest of the world about human rights, which is why the American posture on capital punishment strikes many Europeans as puzzling, hypocritical and utterly indefensible. "There's a very strong sense here that the U.S. behaves the way it does not because it is right, but because it can," Hooper said. Despite this, Europeans generally admire the U.S. as a bastion of democratic principles and moral leadership, which is why the European campaign to abolish the death penalty has focused so much of its energy on trying to change public opinion in the U.S. "The United States is our most opportune target because it is powerful and because it is possible," said Emma Bonino, a former European commissioner from Italy and a human-rights activist. "In a democracy, it is possible to challenge institutions. There is transparency. You can access public opinion through the media. It's much easier for us in the United States than it is in Sudan or China," said Bonino, who recently visited prisons in Illinois and Florida and noted that conditions there were better than in Italian prisons. Opposition to the death penalty is strong and growing across Europe. French and German groups have taken up the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal who sits on Death Row after being convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer. Swedish activists recently declared a boycott on products from California when that state refused to transfer a Swedish Death Row inmate to her homeland. But nowhere is opposition to capital punishment more passionate than in Italy. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in 1786, was the first sovereign state in Europe to outlaw the death penalty. The Italian Constitution abolished capital punishment in 1899 and, though it was reinstated during the Fascist era, it was again abolished by the 1948 constitution. Italian mistrust of capital punishment in the U.S. can be traced to the 1927 case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists charged with murdering a shoe factory paymaster. Even though the evidence against them was flimsy and another man confessed to the crime, Sacco and Vanzetti went to the Massachusetts electric chair. Three years ago, the case of Joseph O'Dell, convicted of raping and then strangling his victim outside a tavern in Virginia Beach, Va., in 1985, became a cause celebre in Italy. O'Dell had no connection to Italy and there seemed to be little doubt of his guilt, but Italian newspapers and politicians embraced his cause. After his July 1997 execution, his remains were flown to the Sicilian city of Palermo and given a VIP funeral. His tombstone reads: "Joseph O'Dell III, beloved husband of Lori Urs O'Dell, honorary citizen of Palermo, killed by Virginia, U.S.A., in a merciless and brutal justice system." Another less-than-successful campaign was the Benetton fashion empire's effort last year to "humanize" Death Row inmates. Benetton and photographer Oliviero Toscani had teamed up in the past for several eye-catching and controversial campaigns, mainly promoting racial tolerance and AIDS awareness. But Toscani's photos of soulful inmates seemed to turn these convicted murderers into fashion models. After victims' families complained and stores such as Sears decided to withdraw the Benetton clothing line, the company canceled the campaign. The Vatican, which didn't formally abolish the death penalty until 1969, has lent its moral weight to Italy's campaign against capital punishment. Pope John Paul II has backed the call for an international moratorium on executions, and the Sant'Egidio Community, a Roman Catholic peace group with close ties to the Vatican, has collected more than 2.5 million signatures in favor of a moratorium. Over the past year, Europe's anti-capital punishment movement can claim other successes. Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Albania have all renounced capital punishment, mainly because they desire closer relations with the European Union. But thus far, Europe's appeal to the U.S. has fallen on deaf ears. Even direct appeals from the pope have met with little success. The pontiff has written repeatedly to Texas Gov. George W. Bush appealing for clemency, according to Vatican sources. Among those on whose behalf the pope has interceded was Gary Graham, who died Thursday by lethal injection in Texas, the 135th prisoner executed there during Bush's five years in office. Over the past year, the Vatican made four separate pleas to spare Graham, the most recent a month ago. Many Europeans are frustrated by their inability to influence U.S. opinion but they have not given up. "We don't want to demonize the U.S. It's not the only country with a problem. Japan, China, India and others continue to execute people. But if the U.S. wants to be a moral leader, then sooner or later it will have to take into account the feelings of its closer allies," said Mario Marazziti, an Italian television producer who volunteers his time to Sant'Egidio's campaign. While a fresh debate on the issue is stirring in the U.S., Europeans are surprised that it is not more vociferous. "Where is the minority of 30 or 40 percent who say they are against capital punishment?" asked Amnesty International's Hooper. "Forty percent of America is a lot of people. It's hard to conceive of people being ambivalent on an issue like this, but the activists in America seem to be fighting a lonely battle." By Tom Hundley Tribune Foreign Correspondent