27 June 2022Pride parade 2022: a look back at a colourful reunion!

Just like every year, ECPM was there to carry the colours of its "Love is not a crime" campaign alongside tens of thousands of participants on Saturday 25 June at the Paris Pride Parade, organised by Inter LGBT. It was an opportunity to meet up with our faithful volunteers and some of our partners, such as Rakia Chehida, an activist from theNational Tunisian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CTCPM): a big thank you to all those who accompanied us for this festive and militant...

15 June 2022The Central African Republic is the 24th African state to abolish the death penalty

The National Assembly of the Central African Republic (CAR) adopted the law abolishing the death penalty in CAR on 27 May 2022. Following the promulgation of this text by President Touadéra, CAR will become the 24th abolitionist state in Africa and the 110th in the world. This historic step is the culmination of intense advocacy work by civil society led by ACAT CAR and parliamentarians that ECPM and FIACAT have actively supported for many years. Furthermore, the long-standing...

14 June 2022Kenya : an overview of the first seminar on the abolition of the death penalty in East Africa

On May 30 and 31, 2022, in Nairobi, ECPM and Crime Si Poa, Kenyan partner association of the event, organized a regional and multi-stakeholder seminar on the death penalty, with a special focus on East Africa. This was the first event of its kind in the region. The purpose of the multi-stakeholder seminar was to organize an exchange between abolitionist actors from six different countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra...

23 May 2022« Businesses are really important voices in the final push for abolition » : Celia Ouellette, founder of the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice , tells us about her committment against the death penalty

Celia Ouellette, a British lawyer who has been an expatriate in the United States since she finished her studies, specializes in the defence of people sentenced to death. In 2017, she launched an initiative designed to challenge private sector actors on the justice issues, including the death penalty - the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, of which ECPM is a partner. With Business and the Death Penalty featuring as the dominant theme for the World Congress in Berlin in November...

28 April 2022Annual report on the death penalty in Iran: sharp rise in executions in 2021

The death penalty situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran remains alarming with a significant increase in executions in 2021 (+25%) and an increasing number of Iranian women being executed. The number of executions has doubled after the election of Ebrahim Raeisi as President, and as the Islamic Republic and Western governments negotiate to revive the nuclear deal, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These are some of the main findings of the 14th Annual Report on...

15 April 2022“Melissa embodies all abolitionist arguments”: a look back at the demonstration in support of Melissa Lucio in Paris

Rassemblement du 14 avril 2022 pour Melissa Lucio - Hôtel de ville de Paris Under the initiative of the group The Youth with Christiane Taubira, several abolitionist associations, human rights activists, members of civil society and elected representatives from Paris gathered at the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville 13 days before Melissa Lucio's scheduled execution date to call on the Texas authorities to reinvestigate the case. Melissa, a working class Latin American woman and mother...

1 April 2022High school students wrote to Melissa Lucio to show their support, one month before the scheduled execution

In February, high school students from the Lycée Augustin Thierry, Blois (France), worked on Melissa Lucio's story in the framework of ECPM's education program. Very touched by her situation, they took the initiative to write her letters of support, as well as writing to Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, to ask him to reconsider the unfair execution of Melissa Lucio planned on April 27.   Ms Weil, who initiated the project, agreed to share why she decided to raise awareness among her...

31 March 2022Sports and the death penalty : On a Reprieve initiative, ECPM and several NGOs call on Formula 1 drivers to take action for the abolition

As the 2022 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix took place on the last weekend of March, ECPM and 9 other human rights groups, including Reprieve, sent joint letters to the drivers, urging them to follow Lewis Hamilton's lead in challenging the Gulf states on rights violations. On Saturday 12 March, 2022, Saudi Arabia beheaded 81 people on death row, more than all executions in 2021. On that day, more than 50 per cent of the condemned prisoners were executed for their participation in pro-democracy...

28 February 2022Three years after Brussels, the World Congress is heading to Berlin!

Find the proceedings of the 7th Congress online to relive the rich debates, the words of the experts and great witnesses, and the film of this major abolitionnist gathering.  Three years later, after a health crisis that has had a heavy impact on human rights around the world, the fight for universal abolition continues: ECPM is preparing the 8th edition of the world's largest abolitionist event in November, in a new host country: Germany! According to Ramla Liatouji, coordinator of the...