Amnesty Canada Campaign Against the Death Penalty

Take a moment to read these words by death penalty attorney Kelley Henry, about the killing of her longtime client, 69-year-old Byron Black.

‘I Need This to Be a Homicide’ Prosecutors who want to look tough on crime may be tempted to treat the death penalty as a political tool.

The death penalty, "theoretically reserved for the worst of the worst" may in fact be "exploited by prosecutors for political advantage, even in cases where guilt is unclear," argues Elizabeth Bruenig:

Amnesty International Media Awards The Amnesty Media Awards celebrate excellence in human rights reporting. Submissions will be accepted until Thursday, July 30, 2025.

@amnesty.ca is accepting nominations for our 2025 Media Awards until 17 August! Find out more here: amnesty.ca/media-awards/

Tennessee man noted intense pain during lethal injection without deactivating defibrillator An inmate executed by Tennessee without deactivating his implanted defibrillator said he was in serious pain after the lethal injection started.

What on earth is to be gained by executing an intellectually disabled, elderly man in a wheelchair, and to do so causing such pain and horror…

URGENT ACTION - Singapore: Further information: Malaysian in Singapore seeks commutation: Pannir Selvam Pranthaman 24 April 2025, Index Number: ASA 36/9297/2025

Please continue to take action for Pannir, who is facing execution in Singapore, contrary to international law on the death penalty.

Jury Voted For Life, Execution Scheduled David Roberts is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on 21 August 2025

USA/Alabama: Jury Voted For Life, Execution Scheduled

Urgent Action and statements on the planned nitrogen gas execution of David Roberts.

Happening today (just over an hour from now!)

WEBINAR MONDAY: War & Capital Punishment The Towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty webinar series continues Monday at 12:30PM Toronto time

Zoom webinar on Monday at 12:30pm - War & Capital Punishment - part of the Towards Abolition of the Death Penalty series (please share!)

As Executions Rise, A Conversation with an Attorney Whose Clients Are Facing the Death Penalty  John Mills, whose client on Oklahoma’s death row was granted a new trial by the U.S. Supreme Court this term, discusses his anti-death-penalty advocacy. 

NEW: Despite support for the death penalty declining, there have been more executions in 2025 than any year in the past decade, "and states are...killing people in ever more gruesome ways..." @kasiawolfkot.bsky.social spoke with attorney John Mills about his anti-death-penalty advocacy.

Your regular reminder that the existence of a death penalty is fundamentally incompatible with a civilized society.

List of 65 countries where homosexuality is illegal Homosexuality is no longer as widely criminalized as it used to be, but a total of 65 nations still have laws against homosexuality.

There are now 65 countries where homosexuality remains a criminal offence, punishable in some by the death penalty.

Black graphic with red and white text reading "25 people have been executed by 10 states so far this year. The time is now to abolish this archaic and cruel practice." Black and white photo of a sign reading "no to the death penalty" in bottom right.

The U.S. remains one of a shrinking number of countries that still uses the death penalty, despite record low public support for the practice.

The death penalty is inhumane, inequitable, and error-ridden. It must be ended for good.

The CA Supreme Court is considering our landmark petition challenging the state’s death penalty as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional. Meanwhile, we’ve called on @governor.ca.gov Newsom to commute the sentences of the 570 people on death row to life without parole.

BREAKING: DC Circuit rules that Pentagon can unravel plea deals with 9/11 plotters that would have precluded death penalty.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

Saudi Arabia: New report denounces alarming escalation in executions including of foreign nationals convicted of drug-related offences 7 July 2025

Saudi Arabia: New report denounces alarming escalation in executions including of foreign nationals convicted of drug-related offences

Malaysia: Two years since mandatory sentencing repeal, government urged to fully abolish the death penalty 3 July 2025 Index Number: ACT 50/9557/2025

Latest @amnesty.org report: Malaysia: Two years since mandatory sentencing repeal, government urged to fully abolish the death penalty

The Human Cost of Jeff Landry’s Drive to Resume Executions Chris Duncan’s death sentence—built on the testimony of two discredited doctors—illustrates just how faulty the system can be.

Death penalty cases have long been plagued by unreliable forensic evidence. One of the worst offenders? Bite-mark analysis, a method that's now widely discredited as junk science. But people are still on death row due to it. boltsmag.org/the-hum...

Reveal of Pope Leo's 2011 note to Illinois governor heartens death penalty opponent In 2011, when then-Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law ending the death penalty in Illinois, the future pope thanked him for the move. That recently uncovered news has "delighted" and "energized" Krisanne Vai...

Before he became Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost had already made his views on one key moral issue unmistakably clear: the death penalty.

Top Scientists Debunked the Arson Case Against Michelle Taylor. She’s in Prison Anyway. The only evidence suggesting Michelle Taylor set the fire that killed her son was repeatedly undercut by expert witnesses in a Florida courtroom.

A Florida fire marshal lab’s flawed gasoline findings have led numerous people to be wrongly accused of arson — including in a death penalty case.

Japan: Cruel execution a stain on country’s human rights record 27 June 2025

Japan’s first execution in nearly three years is a callous attack on the right to life and a major setback for Japan’s human rights record. #deathpenalty

USA: Mississippi set to execute 79-year-old man 12 June 2025 - Index Number: AMR 51/9492/2025

URGENT ACTION:
USA: Mississippi set to execute 79-year-old man.

A strong claim that pursuit of his current sentence was driven by unconstitutional prosecutorial vindictiveness remains unreviewed on the merits.

Iran: Arbitrary execution of Woman Life Freedom protester Mojahed Kourkouri after sham trial and torture [Original post June 11, 2025 8:50 pm]

Iran: Arbitrary Execution Of Woman Life Freedom Protester Mojahed Kourkouri After Sham Trial And Torture

California’s death penalty process is inhumane, unjust, ineffective, and unfixable. Please use your executive authority to grant clemency in all death penalty cases.

Inspiring project in California calling for universal clemency for those on California’s death row: clemencyca.org

Are you at the @amnesty.ca AGM this year? Drop by Action Alley to see the work and actions our section works on. Take action, find resources and connect!

Bill C-2, Canada’s new border bill, an attack on the human right to seek asylum Amnesty International Canada says Bill C-2, the federal government’s new border bill, is an attack on refugees’ right to seek asylum.

With Bill C-2, the Canadian government threatens to chip away at that right, making it harder for people seeking safety and freedom to file an asylum claim and have it assessed fairly.
amnesty.ca/human-rights...

Honouring Margaret John, a tireless, globally adored volunteer whose work on Singapore and Malaysia inspired us all. A coordinator when I took on the Death Penalty abolition work in 2007 who quickly became a dear friend. @amnesty.ca AGM2025

Firing squad, electric chair, nitrogen gas, injection: US expands execution methods Between 2021 and 2023, 100% of all executions in the U.S. were done by lethal injection. In the last year and a half, 16% have involved other methods.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

The abolitionist movement has lost a major figure. Sunny Jacobs was wrongly convicted and sent to death row before eventual exoneration. Her first husband, convicted of the same crime, was brutally executed in a botched electrocution in Florida.

May Sunny rest in peace.

She and her first husband, Jesse Tafero, were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. Florida executioners set him on fire in the electric chair, a fiasco that led most states to abandon that execution method. @8thamendment.org @fadp.bsky.social #deathpenalty