The European Union praised Russia's President Vladimir...

The European Union praised Russia's President Vladimir Putin for upholding a moratorium on the death penalty.
Putin said he would maintain Russia's five-year moratorium on the death penalty despite popular pressure to reinstate it, saying he believed "state-sponsored cruelty" was not a deterrent against crime.
"The European Union welcomes the comments made on July 9, 2001, by President Putin opposing the reestablishment of the death penalty in the Russian Federation," the EU said in a statement.
The 15-nation bloc urged Moscow to scrap capital punishment completely. Though it has not carried out executions since 1996, Russia retains the death penalty on its statute books."The European Union reaffirms that it considers the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights," said the statement, issued by the EU's Belgian presidency.