5 March 2021Egypt: 16 people, including at least three women, executed for ordinary crimes

On Tuesday 2 March, 11 death row inmates were executed in Egypt by hanging at Borg el-Arab prison, north of Alexandria. Three days before, on Saturday 27 February, 5 other convicts, including three women, were executed in Ismailia (north-east), also for common crimes. Read our brief on the death penalty in Egypt  >>  Last December, ECPM already warned about the alarming increase in executions in the country (they tripled in 2020 compared to previous years) and issued a press...

12 February 2021Iraq : 5 Iraqi nationals executed for terrorism

On Tuesday 9 February, Iraq executed 5 Iraqi nationals, all of whom had been convicted of terrorism. They were executed in the central prison of Nassiriya in southern Iraq. ECPM is very concerned about these new executions: Iraq is one of the 5 countries executing the most people in the world (out of the 49 countries applying the death penalty) and 11 French citizens have been sentenced to death by the Iraqi justice system in 2019 for the same reason.   These executions took place...

9 February 2021United States : Virginia votes to abolish the death penalty

On Friday, February 5, the Virginia House of Delegates voted to end the death penalty practiced in the state since 1608. This is a historic step, not only because Virginia will be the 23rd US state to abolish the death penalty, but also because it will be the first state in the South to abolish it. The Democratic-led House of Delegates voted 57-41 in favour of ending the death penalty. The Senate passed it earlier this week, and Governor Ralph Northam said he would sign the repeal into...

3 February 2021Urgent action to release Kurdish activists and others arbitrarily detained in Iran

We, the undersigned 36 civil society and human rights organizations, call for the urgent attention of the international community to an ongoing wave of arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, and enforced disappearances by the Iranian authorities, targeting scores of people from Iran’s disadvantaged Kurdish minority in the provinces of Alborz, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Tehran, and West Azerbaijan.     Signatories...

2 February 2021ECPM and several NGOs call on Paris City Hall to oppose the Kingdom of Bahrain’s “sport whitewashing” campaign

For the immediate and unconditional release of 12 men sentenced to death for crimes they confessed under torture and the imposition of an official moratorium on the application of the death penalty in Bahrain. This Tuesday, on February 2, 2021, the Council of Paris will announce its position on the renewal of the yearly 500, 000€ subvention allocated to the Paris FC. On July 27 2020, the Paris Football Club announced having concluded an agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain, granting it...

1 February 2021International poster competition for young people : only one month left to register!

There are only a few days left to register for the international poster competition "Draw me Abolition"! Organised by ECPM for 5 years, this new edition of the competition already welcomes 200 young participants, ready to commit themselves against the death penalty throughout the world. On the occasion of the 18th World Day against the Death Penalty, 10 October 2020, young people from all over the world are invited to participate in the 5th edition of the "Draw me the Abolition"...

27 January 2021Video : 20 years of struggle, Together against the death penalty !

As you know, we were celebrating in 2020 the 20 years of our association. It is today turned towards the future and rich of our history, born from yours, that we wanted to convey a message to you. Discover it now in our video.  You can activate the English or French subtitles by clicking on the "settings" icon in the menu at the bottom right of the video on YouTube. ECPM wishes you all the best for 2021 !  "To the founders of Together against the death penalty, to the...

21 January 2021Death penalty in Lebanon: ECPM publishes its new fact-finding mission

As Lebanon has just celebrated, on 20 January, 17 years of moratorium on executions, ECPM and its partners are publishing an exclusive fact-finding mission to Lebanon's death rows. "Alive, without being", written by Carole Berrih and Karim El Mufti, puts into perspective the numerous testimonies gathered by the investigators in relation to the historical, legal and political context of the country in order to question public opinion and engage in dialogue with the authorities. This report...

19 January 2021Launch of a small grants programme in DRC and Cameroon

ECPM, along with its partners CPJ and Droits et Paix, is launching its small grants programme for 2021 in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. Two projects by country, running 3 to 12 months from May 2021 and based outside the capitals, will be selected. The application deadline is 28 February 2021. General objective of these calls are : providing support to civil society organizations working on human rights outside the capitals, promoting and raising awareness about abolition...

15 January 2021Join us on 21 January for the webinar to launch our fact-finding mission in Lebanon

Join us on Thursday, 21 January at 10am (UTC+1) for the launch of our new fact-finding mission on the death penalty in Lebanon, "Alive, without being". Register online by following this link. The fact-finding mission was carried out by ECPM in partnership with the AJEM (l'Association Justice et Miséricorde) and the LACR (the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights). Carole Berrih, Director of Synergies Coopération and editor of this report, and her co-editor Karim El Mufti took up the...