Friends don't let their friends execute their citizens!

On June 11 Timothy McVeigh was killed by the US government, acting in the name of the American people.

On that day, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches issued a press release reaffirming its unconditional opposition to the death penalty:

"It makes no sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong: there is a contradiction between what we say and what we do," the Alliance said.

McVeigh died by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, including 19 children. His death ended a 30-year de facto moratorium on federal executions in the USA.

Twelve years ago, the 22nd general council (Seoul, 1999) called for the universal abolition of the death penalty. This stance is shared by many Alliance member churches.

"Our conviction," the Seoul council said, "is grounded in our theological understanding of the justice of God, which demands that the inherent worth of every human life be accorded dignity, not contingent on the moral rectitude of human beings."

"Because human beings are created in the image of God and because of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we affirm that each human life is of value."

The Alliance agrees with Amnesty International that, while the worst abuses of capital punishment may be removed by legislation, the punishment itself can never be freed of its cruelty or its potential for irreversible error. The death penalty deliberately imitates what it seeks to condemn: the deliberate taking of human life. It offers no constructive contribution to addressing violent crime and those victimized by it.

The Alliance is active in campaigning against capital punishment. The 57th session of the UN commission on human rights, which took place in Geneva in March and April this year, was addressed on our behalf by Rev Melodee Smith of the United Church of Christ, a witness of US executions and a victims' rights advocate as well as an attorney for people on death row.

"I come from a very proud country," Smith told the commission. "Although I learned from childhood that killing is wrong and that countries which kill their own citizens are not to be respected for this injustice... even now I find it hard to challenge my own government, like many of the USA's friends here in this room who do not want to embarrass colleagues by objecting or intervening in any way other than polite admonition."

But she drew courage from a powerful US campaign against drinking and driving, which used the slogan, "Friends don't let their friends drive drunk!". She suggested that the commission adopt a similar ethic of concern for states that retain the death penalty: "Friends don't let their friends execute their citizens!"

In addition to this oral intervention, the Alliance also

• organized a performance of the play, Un avocat pour Karla - a moving dialogue between a woman on death row and her attorney - in the Ecumenical Centre on April 5, together with the Conference of European Churches and the Lutheran World Federation;
• held a service of prayer for the abolition of capital punishment in St Pierre Cathedral on April 8, together with the parish of St Pierre-Fusterie; and
• hosted a public discussion on poverty, racism and the death penalty on April 11, with presentations by Melodee Smith and by Barbara Lewis, mother of an inmate on death row in the USA.

Melodee Smith and Barbara Lewis with
Park Seong-won, cooperation and witness secretary