Death penalty is barbaric

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 02/02/2007 4:35 PM  |  Opinion

I refer to the Jan. 27 Jakarta Post article titled RI trying to free its citizens from capital punishment abroad.

I am wondering how the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry could possibly explain its illogical request in a honorable way to its foreign counterparts. On the one hand this country wants its citizens who are sentenced to capital punishment in a foreign country to be pardoned and the verdicts reduced to imprisonment. On the other hand this country is steadfast in its policy of never pardoning anyone who has been sentenced to the death penalty, foreigners or locals alike.

Requests for forgiveness from foreign countries have been rejected and are considered intervention in our sovereign affairs. It is about time our government realizes that capital punishment is a thing of the barbaric past. Anyone involved in handing out the death penalty, passively or actively, is committing a crime against humanity.

Moreover, killing someone is a major sin; only God as the creator of mankind has the right to takes lives away. Let no one excuse himself and hide behind man-made laws. The law of God is above all.

We need to be able to forgive our own prisoners on death row before we dare ask other countries to show mercy themselves.

ARTHUR PHILIP WENAS
Depok, West Java

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