Human rights || Portugal is pleading with all members of the United Nations (UN) to support the moratorium on the death penalty resolution, which will be voted on in December during the organisation’s general assembly.
In a nutshell, the resolution calls on States that maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium with a view to abolition and, in the meantime, restrict the number of offences which it punishes.
“Capital punishment violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an official statement.
Being one of the first European countries to abolish the death penalty, the ministry stressed that Portugal “strongly opposes the different arguments and reasoning for its existence and its use in any circumstance”.
The fact that it has already been abolished in two-thirds of the UN’s state members is applauded by the ministry, which guarantees it is “committed to continue defending and promoting the end of capital punishment”.
This latest push came on October 10 – the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
