Some 300 school children participated in a children's...

Some 300 school children participated in a children's art exhibition sponsored by the Movement for People's Rights as part of its nationwide campaign against capital punishment.Children stood beside their paintings, which depicted capital punishment's as cruel. Paintings were hung on wooden gallows that served as frames. Fastened to these were ropes which, instead of dangling corpses, displayed letters addressed to the nation's leaders from children.Amanda Aoun, 14, from Sacre Coeur School in Baalbek, told how her father was killed when she was younger, and how his killer was subsequently executed: "I was small and didn't know if that was wrong or right, but I used to hear my grandmother say: 'Even if they gave me a knife and told me to slaughter (his murderer), my son still would not have returned to me.'Aoun said she saw no benefit in killing those who have committed murder. "I feel sorry for the family of that man. Instead of two orphans, there are five. He left three kids behind - in addition to my brother and I, who don't have a father anymore."Lara Darian, a seventh-grader at Notre Dame de Louaizeh School, wrote a letter to President Emile Lahoud, asking him to consider her opinions and "think about them thoroughly." "Mr. President, we should not be butchers," she wrote. Darian urged the government to be "fair" by granting "a second chance" to the condemned. Capital punishment, she argued, eliminates any possibility the accused may change or reform. "Sometimes, after bad experiences, there are people who renew themselves and change their way of life from a bad one to a good one," she wrote.