CUBA. CUBAN SOCIOLOGIST AURELIO ALONSO SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

Cuban sociologist Aurelio Alonso perceives the problem of capital punishment from two angles: legal and ethical. "The crux of the matter is which perspective is subordinate and which is dominant. In my view, arguments justifying the death penalty are essentially based on legal and political criteria," he told IPS.
But Alonso explained that from an ethical point of view, at least two premises are indisputable. "The first is that the right to life takes precedence over every other right, and embraces everything, even that which goes against that right, including violent crime, death by malnutrition, or death from curable diseases."
Such a principle is "quite contrary to any justification that can be put forward in favor of the death penalty, whatever the enormity of the crime committed, and however reasonable capital punishment may seem to us from another angle," he said.
Secondly, "the death penalty simply eliminates the person to whom it is applied, by taking his or her life, but it condemns his or her nearest relatives to a life sentence of pain and sorrow, even though they are innocent of the crime committed," the researcher said.
These ethical points "are even more important" than other considerations, "such as the proven fact that capital punishment cannot be shown to exert an exemplary effect that contributes to reducing crime," Alonso said.
"I think that a society that prohibits euthanasia, which is the taking of life as an act of compassion, yet needs to kill people in the interests of justice, has distorted values that it needs to straighten out," concluded the sociologist.