Please Sign The Anti-Death Penalty Petition

The death penalty has been a very serious and divisive subject since its abolition as one of the main social reforms of Harold Wilson's Labour government in the 1960s. Following the social reforms in the late 1960s the only act that was punishable by death was treason. Since then almost every parliamentary term has had a vote on whether or not to bring back the death penalty. The last vote occurred in the early 1990s. In 1998, Parliament passed the Human Rights Act which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British law; this act of Parliament once and for all abolished entirely any notion of the death penalty in the United Kingdom.

This week, the Coalition Government has launched a new program of e-petitions on the Internet. The right-wing blogger, Guido Fawkes announced that he would launch a petition calling for the return of the death penalty and if the petition is successful this will be debated and voted upon in Parliament. The death penalty is a barbaric and authoritarian measure whereby the state can legitimately murder its own citizens. As Mahatma Gandhi once said ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’ Britain would be morally blind if it allowed the return of the death penalty. That is why I encourage everyone to sign the anti-death penalty petition. This petition has been submitted on the government’s e-petition website by the chair of Liberal Youth, Martin Shapland. This petition submitted by the youth wing of the Liberal Democrats seeks to counter the calls made by Guido Fawkes to bring back the death penalty.

Please show your support and sign the anti-death penalty petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1090