Strasbourg, 26/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - A few days after the adoption by the Presidents of the world, on 22 June in Strasbourg, of a call for the universal abolition of the death penalty, the Council of Europe parliamentary Assembly has, in adopting the report by Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP-ED), asserted that the death penalty constitutes an inhuman and degrading penalty under Article 3 of the European Human Rights Convention. The Assembly, which recalls that the acceptance of an immediate moratorium on executions and an undertaking to abolish the death penalty are, since 1994, a prior condition for accession to the Council of Europe, decided to question the maintaining of the observer status for Japan and the United Sates with the organisation, in the absence of notable progress by 2003. In the coming months the Assembly intends to undertake a dialogue with American and Japanese parliamentarians on this issue.
The United States and Japan continue to enforce the death penalty, while presenting themselves as the champions of human rights and democracy, commented the President of the Council of Europe's parliamentary Assembly, Lord Russel-Johnston.