On June 2, President Yeltsin issued a decree commuting...

On June 2, President Yeltsin issued a decree commuting the death sentences of the 716 prisoners to life or 25 years in prison, piling pressure on the country's Parliament to put a definitive end to capital punishment to comply with the terms of its membership of the Council of Europe human rights forum. Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov said: "This is a historic day in Russian democracy." The President's efforts to abolish capital punishment had been thwarted by Communists and other hard-liners in the Parliament who argued that the death penalty is necessary to control violent crime. Human rights activists warned that without legal support, Russia could face renewed executions under a possible new leader after a presidential election due in 2000. During a death penalty conference, Anatoly Pristavkin observed that capital punishment had done nothing to deter Russia's most violent criminals. He said many death row inmates were alcoholics and drifters - not the organized crime bosses and hit men whom many Russians fear. Pristavkin added that prison conditions in Russia were so atrocious that many inmates were "practically begging for a death sentence" to escape the overcrowding and disease that plague Russian prisons. "Waiting for death is even worse punishment than execution," he said.