EUROPEAN MPS REPEAT CALL FOR UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM

An overwhelming majority of MEPs adopted a resolution backing a universal moratorium on capital punishment and urging the European Union presidency to act on the parliament's call earlier this year to table an immediate resolution at the United Nations.
The EU should every seize "every opportunity" to foster "regional abolitionist coalitions" in its campaign for a universal moratorium that has now gathered 88 signatures among UN countries, the parliament stated. Lastly, the parliament called on the EU's institutions, together with the Council of Europe, "to support the World Day against the Death Penalty by declaring 10 October, as from 2007, a European Day against the Death Penalty."
A total 88 countries have completely abolished capital punishment and 11 have ended the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as war crimes, according to top campaign group Amnesty International.