Two al Qaeda militants have been sentenced to death for involvement in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Oct. 12, 2000. This attack occurred in Aden port, Yemen, and led to deaths of 17 American sailors.
One of the suspects condemned to death is Saudi-born Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. He is in an undisclosed location in U.S. custody now. It is unclear how the verdict will influence his detention.
Life is the most precious thing in the world. Everything else seems to be irrelevant, unsteady and illusive. That is why the death penalty is considered to be the most rigorous punishment. Still, I wonder if the death penalty is an adequate remedy in the war against terror? Where is the truth?
Let’s look at the issue from the world perspective. While many countries have a moratorium on the death penalty, many others apply capital punishment. For instance, approximately 80 percent of the United Kingdom population approves of the death penalty.
In 2004, authorities in China’s northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang have sentenced more than 50 people to death in what government officials say is a war on terrorism. Eight participants of the 1995 Japan Subway Sarin incident, an act of domestic violence by a Japanese cult, received death sentences in July 2004.
Russia declared moratorium on the death penalty in connection with its entry to the Council of Europe. Everybody is aware of the recent violent terrorist Beslan Tragedy in one of Chechen’s schools. Now some deputies of Duma, the Russian Parliament, support the idea to impose the death penalty on terrorists.
The priority aim of all legal systems is restoration of justice. Few people believe people change or experience sorrow for their mistakes. Thus, for every wrong done there should be a punishment. Yet it is more important to make a person repent about what he has done than to punish him. If the punishment leads to repentance, let it be.
But I am not sure that death sentences of terrorists will make them regret killing innocent people. In order to get rid of evil, you should abolish its reason. If you just cut a tree, it is still alive. When you dig and dry the roots, it will die.
We must also think about people who have lost their dear ones. I’m not going to judge victims’ relatives who demand vengeance. But there is nothing that can bring back the people they lost.
Finally, what do we mean when speaking about being humane? Everything is relative. What is right for one person is wrong for another. You never know what is humane and you never know what your descendants will think about that.
For instance, my instructor in history of modern France considers a guillotine to have been a humane invention. While other facilities of execution made a person suffer terrible pain for some time, the guillotine took just one second to kill a person sentenced to death.
The death penalty is a burning, contradictory and eternal question. Through the centuries generations have been seeking the truth. Time itself was fighting for human rights, an era in which everybody will follow Moses’ Commandments. People continue to kill and continue to judge.
Even though there cannot be any measurable punishment for terrorist acts and death penalty is still a murder, it seems to be the only thing we have to get rid of evil.
Milana Karayanidi is a freshman general business administration major. She can be reached at [email protected].