Abolish death penalty

This is my 9th speech in toastmasters. :) 

Have you heard of about this incident? The execution of Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia? She was a domestic helper and her employer's four-month-old child died while in Nafeek's care in 2005. Sources state that she was forced to sign on a paper saying she strangled the infant while she claimed that she believed the baby had choked on a bottle by accident during feeding. She was only 17 years old when this happened. It looks like her age was altered as 23 in the passport just to get the job in Saudi. Sad to see that the poverty has made them do this. Due to the age confusion I think she could not get any help under Child rights law as well.

Nafeek was imprisoned and sentenced to death on 16th June 2007. SL government, Prince of Wales and many humanitarian organizations had appealed against this. It did not work and Saudi government said they could not get pardon from child’s parents and she was executed on   9th January 2013.

It was deeply saddening to see this in news and social media for a while. Death penalty for a teenage girl’s careless mistake?! True that they have lost a priceless soul but will the capital punishment bring their dead child back? Would you be able to accept this kind of punishment? Ok. What do you think of death penalty in general? Do you think death penalty is necessary or do we need to get rid of it? In my point of view we need to eradicate it from the whole world.

Dear Toastmaster and friends! Why do we need to get rid of capital punishment? Here are my reasons.

1.       Whether we need capital punishment for the guilty person or not is one thing. What if the verdict was wrong or it was based on weak /fake evidences?  It is totally unacceptable to punish an innocent soul. It has happened many times in the world history. We all know that capital punishment is too expensive and irreversible. Realizing that someone got executed was innocent only after punishment will help for nothing. Let’s take Rizana’s case that I explained a while ago. It looks like a careless childish mistake which does not deserve a very severe capital punishment. Another example is the famous “Mata hari” story.She was a dancer and had much influence among political people. She was executed by French for being  a spy for German where actually she did not share any critical French military secrets with Germans says some journalists and they say she was scapegoated for french’s military mistakes when they lost the war. They needed someone to be blamed for their own mistakes. “It is better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person be convicted.”

2.       Death penalty is nothing less than a murder. Revenge does not help; it does not help reduce the crimes. The psychological mind-set of the criminal is such that they are not able to consider consequences at the time of the crime. Most crimes are crimes of passion that are done in situations involving intense excitement or concern. People who commit these crimes are not in a normal state of mind -- they do not consider the consequences in a logical way.  Deterrents may work in instances where the punishment is obvious and immediate, neither of which are true for the death penalty. Experts suggest that criminal behavior and the murder rate may best be curbed by addressing the environmental and social factors that contribute to violent crime.I'm not trying to say that we can let the rapists or murderers go free with out any punishment. Entire life time in prison,do you think there will be anything to call it a life? Life sentence - whole life in a prison it self is a biggest punishment. No planned murder or in other words death penalty needed.

3.       Momentary evil action might lead us to lifelong regret. How many times the momentary extreme emotions made us do sins by words or deeds? How many times we regretted for the bitter words or unkind words we uttered or unkind actions we carried out. Can you all recall at least one incident from your past? Would you like to be judged for each and every small and big mistakes you make in your day to day life? None of us would welcome it. Small or big, mistakes are mistakes. Then why do not we try to understand it and show some empathy when someone else make a mistake? None of us are perfect.Let’s be kind and extend some empathy towards others especially when they make mistakes.

4.       How many of you believe in reincarnation? I do.  I read a story sometime back where a 2 years old little boy in USA would wake up in the midnight and Over and over again, the tiny child screamed: 'Plane on fire! Little man can't get out.' writhing on his bed in the grip of horror. Kicking and clawing at the covers like he was trying to kick his way out of a coffin. After lot of research his parents found out that he was the reincarnation of a World War II pilot that died in an airplane crash when it was shot by Japanese. James's nightmares continued until he was eight. They have a written a book on this as well. Just search on google “The soul survivor: The reincarnation of world war II pilot” to know more about it. What I’m trying to say here is the wounds and deepest pain and fear in the soul will likely be carried forward to many births. Of course a tragedy like death sentence would make the same kind of nightmare to the frightened soul in a long term. I have heard of some similar stories where it confirms that fear or pain is carried forward from incarnation to incarnation. How would it feel if we get to know our date and time of death?! No soul on this earth deserves such an extreme amount of pain I think.

There is a saying in bible:

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

So let’s be humans and let’s raise our voices against death penalty and let’s abolish it from our earth. Thank you!