The Head of the Catholic Churches World-wide and sovereign of the Vatican City State, Pope Francis, has renewed his call to abolish the death penalty, on Monday, on the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty.
The pontiff via his Twitter page wrote; “I call on all people of goodwill to mobilize for the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world.”
“Society can effectively repress crime without definitively depriving the offenders of the possibility of redeeming themselves.”
The Argentine pope has spoken out against the death penalty throughout his pontificate and in 2018 called it “inadmissible” as he hardened the Church’s stance on capital punishment.
According to Amnesty International, at the end of last year, 108 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes,
They are among 140 countries where the death penalty has been abolished either in practice or in law, representing three-quarters of the World’s states.
According to Amnesty’s latest report published in May, at least 579 people were executed last year in 18 countries, a rise of 20 percent from the prior year.
More than half of them were in Iran.
Among the latest Countries to end capital punishment are Equatorial Guinea, Malawi, Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone.