EUROPE SAYS "NO" TO DEATH PENALTY

In the building of European Parliament in Brussels a Constituent Congress of the International League for the abolishment of death penalty took place.

BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI ON THE ELECTRIC CHAIR

Don't be afraid, the nominee of the Oscar prize didn't kill anybody and wasn't sentenced to death. Electric chair was delivered to the European Parliament by the opponents of death penalty as a protest against the barbarity of the 20th century. Bertolucci tied himself up to the chair to support the noble intentions of the League. The journalists were so fascinated by weird exotic of the electrical death that they even proposed the participants of the Congress to declare against death penalty in a pose of a sentenced to the capital punishment.

To tell the truth, I also experienced that weird "initiation". The feeling of belts tightly drawing your arms and legs to the chair is not pleasant enough to want to keep it in your memory. Once again one can see that "humane" penalty doesn't exist. Even psychologically it's scaring.

Let's remind the famous guillotine of emperor Ludovik. The humane king wanted to smooth the tortures of a penalized person by replacing an axe with a guillotine. When the guillotine was demonstrated him for his approval, the educated emperor took a ruler and modified the draft of a knife. This knife must not be straight but with the 45' angle - thus the blow power will be greater and a penalized person wouldn't be tortured that much. Poor emperor didn't know that he would experience the invention on his own neck.

MONOPOLY FOR THE MURDER.

All the speeches in English, French, Deutch, Italian, Spanish, Russian contained the urgent demand for death penalty abolishment or at least the moratorium for carrying out the verdicts. For some reason US were blamed most of all. By the way, death penalty is not adopted by all the states in that country.

Representatives of Russia could boast thanks to the fact that capital punishment in our country is not applied to non-adults, pregnant women and old persons. In US, unfortunately, this barrier is overstepped. Not long ago a teenager was penalized.

The jurist paid special attention to the uncompatibility of the capital punishment and the principle of the "subject of law". The administration of justice can be applied only to the alive persons but not to the dead ones. If one of the law subjects is being eliminated than it is not justice but massacre and revenge what is totally uncompatible with the concept of law. The representatives of France and Brazil (where death penalty doesn't exist) feeled themselves better than anybody else though the criminal statistics there is not lawer than in our country.

The main argument of all the delegations - uncompatibility of death penalty and the Declaration of Human Rights. The talks about the rights are senseless if the state doesn't guarantee the right to live.

New Russian Constitution doesn't abolish death penalty, what means that the right for life also is not guaranteed.

The participants of the Congress named the state right for death penalty to be a state monopoly for murder. If the citizens are not allowed to kill each other on the revenge considerations why is it allowed to the state? From the point of view of the Congress, that is a survival of the past when the rights of a state in all cases were set higher than the rights of an individual.

THE MESSAGES OF DALAI-LAMA AND VLADIMIR MONOMAKH

Death penalty in Tibet injures the souls of religious Buddhists. The Dalai-Lama appeal to the Congress says that from the buddhist's point of view, everything alive can re-incarnate in Buddah. It's impossible to kill anything alive, moreover - to kill a human being. Any human being is a potential saint. To kill him maens to kill Buddah.

One priest offered a goat and when he took out his knife a goat started laughing as a man.

- Why are you laughing?- asked the priest.

- I laugh because in my previous incarnation, I was a priest offering a goat.

Then a priest laughed.

- I remind that in my previous life I was that goat you offered.

The chain of violence secluded. A murder gives birth to a murder. That wise buddhist parable deeply excited the salle.

The Transnational Party Coordinator Sergio D'Elia (Italy) said that from the christian point of view the death penalty is absolutely unacceptable. Anatolij Pristavkin, Chairman of the Commission on mercy of the President of Russia sadly smiled. He knows that the position of Russian Clergy doesn't coincide with D'Elia's point of view.

One thousand years ago when Kievskaya Rus' accepted Christianity, Prince Vladimir abolished death penalty. A person who was baptized in a senile age clearly conceived uncompatibility of death penalty and Christ's commandments. However one year passed and the boyards forced Vladimir to cancel death penalty prohibition. Though it was canceled, juridically death penalty wasn't included in the Kievskaya Rus' Criminal Statute. Later another famous prince Vladimir Monomakh bequeathed his sons a well-known letter in which he conjured his heirs to reject forever the murders and revenge. An ability to forgive was appreciated more than any military deads. "Don't kill an innocent or guilty person, don't order to kill even if smb's death is his fault". I'm sure that the Congress in Brussels would great that Monomakh's appeal with the same storm of applause as the Dalai-Lama message though one thousand years has passed between them.

POLITICAL MURDERS

Capital punishment for the criminal and political crimes was abolished by emress Ekaterina. Having sworn "not to shed Russian blood", she kept her promise. Unfortunately, in Ekaterina II reign the prohibition was canceled once again due to the Pugachev's rebellion. A new rise of violence - penalty of Dekabrists in the XIX century. he deepest shock for all Russia.

Barbarian assault on the Alexander II life and his death caused a wave of murders. It's impossible to re-read without astonishment a letter by Lev Tolstoj, where he calls the emperor to rise under his personal feeling and forgive his enemies regecting death penalty according to the Christ"s commandment. Seemed like inter-centuries connection was re-established and the humanism of Vladimir Monomakh became available to the Russians.

One of Tolstoj's arguments against death penalty turned out to be prophetical. Denying the political expediency of death penalty he said that every terrorist had a son or a brother who sooner or later would start to revenge using the same bloody methods. That happened. A brother of the penalized terrorist A.Uljanov became the most cruel dictator in Russia until an even more cruel one replaced him.

A representative of a Green Party Maria-Tereza Delash on her first day of the meeting with the Russian delegation proposed to drink for "the Russia of Lev Tolstoj"

"Russia is a civilized country. It has Lev Tolstoj. I believe that death penalty will be abolished in your country".

Unfortunately we couldn't share her confidence. Political passions don't afford us to rise to the height of Vladimir Monomakh and Lev Tolstoj. Only two months ago the Supreme Council passed a decision on death penalty for the political enemies. Even the extremest prophet will not predict what passions will boil up in a new 2-chambers parliament of Russia. In the meantime in the European Parliament Emma Bonino, Radical Party Secretary, who worked a lot for the establishing of the International Tribunal for the War Crimes Commited in Former Yugoslavia, reported that the Tribunal rejects to use death penalty verdicts.

And immediately the Congress was alarmed by a news that came from Moldova about the death penalty sentence for a political enemy. A message from Azerbaidjan also alarmed the Congress - a law that allows to shoot the deserters was passed.

Is it possible that former USSR countries are doomed to search always their own way in the opposite side of the all-world progress?

RIGHT NOT TO KILL

Every speaker brought somebody with him to the salle: Christ, Buddha, Gandi, Albert Shweizer, Vladimir Kievskij, Turgenev, Chekhov, Viktor Giugeau, Tomas Mann, Mouzes; all of them said "Don't kill". They spoke nine European languages and among others Russian sounded pretty often.

Transnational Party that had organized this Congress pursued two main goals: to start an international Tribunal in Hague and put death penalty outside the law (at least international) till the begining of the third millenium. That goal seems unreachable but the International Tribunal now established in Hague also recently seemed to be a pure utopia.

It's clear that in a world enveloped in the political passions besides the right not to be killed another right - not to kill - must exist. Millions of people in former Jugoslavia, USSR, Africa, China, many regions of Middle Asia are devoid of this right now.

At first the Congress in Brussels seemed to me something like a meeting of "fine soul" day-dreamers. Well, they came from different countries, spoke, adopted a resolution, elected a permanent Committee, filled the metal box of the Europarliament with the new documents - what's further? However to the end of Congress work it became more and notable what we lack in Russia - purposefulness, consistency and decisivness to realize every nominated goal. Europe says - don't kill!

It can be said that a mission organized by the Russian branch of the Transnational Party was successful. Two representatives of Russia - Pristavkin and Bezrukov - were included in the permanent committee of the International League for the abolishment of death penalty to the 2000-year.

Brussels-Moscow

On behalf of the editorial board: an appeal of the International Congress in Brussels - to abolish death penalty befor the 2000-th year - directly concerns Russian laws. In the nearest future we intend to publish the material about the attitude towards this problem in our country, about the work of the Commission on mercy of the President of Russia.