Anti-death penalty advocates in Thailand get boost

FORMER Philippine senator Aquilino Pimentel’s visit to Thailand last week has given a welcome boost to local advocates campaigning against the death penalty.

Pimentel was a key figure in a three-year campaign which saw the death penalty abolished in the Philippines in 2006.

“We find the death penalty an outmoded method of exacting justice…. It is an ineffective method of deterring criminals … and it’s cruel,” Pimentel said at a discussion at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand during his March 7-9 visit to Bangkok.

He was speaking several days before Thailand tells the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week why it still implements capital punishment.

“It is biased against the poor, the unlettered, the unconnected,” Pimentel said, pointing out that majority of death row convicts are poor and have had minimal education.

Pimentel was in Thailand at the invitation of Amnesty International Thailand to share his experience in campaigning against the death penalty in Philippines with Thai senators, government officials and civil society groups.

Report from ucanews.com