Catholic forum calls for moratorium on death penalty

February 14, 2013: In the wake of the execution of the Indian parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, a Catholic forum has called for a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.

"India should consider a moratorium against all executions, pending a review and a comprehensive review of the death penalty," said Joseph Dias, president of Catholic Secular Forum (CSF). Dias said that in a recent vote at the UN General Assembly, 110 countries called for the abolition of the death penalty, while India was among the 39 countries that sustained it. According to the UN, about 150 countries have abolished the death penalty or have established a moratorium, he said.

Dias said that Christians are against death penalty for well-known religious reasons, as it defends the sanctity of life. CSF said that death penalty does not necessarily heal the wounds of the victims or their families and it is an inhumane penalty, which makes society less civil and more cruel.

Studies indicate that life imprisonment has major value as a deterrent; the death penalty, finally, also represents a waste of resources, which wastes the courts time and energy and worsens the criminal justice system, it said.

Guru, who was the mastermind of the parliament attack, was executed in the Tihar jail on Feb. 9 after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition. His body was buried in the jail premises.