Sister Helen Prejean, the author and real life protagonist...

Sister Helen Prejean, the author and real life protagonist of the book that inspired the movie "Dead Man Walking", visited South Korea to join a death penalty abolishment campaign currently underway in the country.
Speaking at a press conference organized by the Catholic Bishop's Conference of Korea, the Nobel Peace Prize nominee, whose life has been devoted to abolishing capital punishment after witnessing an electric chair execution said she opposes the death penalty because it violates human dignity.
"Death penalty should be abolished because of what it does to us as a society. It involves our own members in having to strap down a human being and kill them. And to me, it's more a profound act of despair than anything, because saying all we can do with a person who has killed is imitate them and kill them that's not a life road, that's a death road," she said.
Also commenting on the frail nature of human beings, Sister Helen said even the best of justice systems can execute innocent people, let alone situations in which the death penalty is used as a political scheme.
"The truth is, in modern societies, we now have imprisonment as a way to incapacitate dangerous people. And it would be wonderful to see the people of South Korea to be one of the first Asian countries to hold up that beacon and give an example to other countries," she added.
A total of 60 people have been sentenced to death in Korea since the current administration took office in 1998 although no executions have actually been carried out. Still many people like Sister Helen reveal concerns over their fate, depending on policy changes over the ultimate punishment in the next government after the December Presidential election.