The Bundestag, called for the United States to abolish...

The Bundestag, called for the United States to abolish the death penalty, defining the practice as "inhuman" and "scarcely efficient".The German Parliament unanimously approved a resolution affirming that the death penalty violates the most fundamental human right - the right to life. The death penalty, according to the German MPs, is "a totally unjustified form of cruel punishment, degrading and inhuman."Greens MP Claudia Roth said that 673 people have been executed in the US since 1976. With the execution of minors and mentally disabled persons, the States run counter to international standards, Heide Mattischek of the Social Democratic Party said. The former general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union, Ruprecht Polenz, said that capital punishment is not only inhuman, but has no significant effect as a deterrent against crime.