Welcome to the reality of executions
19.01.07
The western media has declared itself shocked at the way in which the executions in Iraq were carried out.
First, Saddam was mocked and humiliated on the gallows by masked officials; and at the subsequent executions of two of his associates, one had his head ripped off by the noose. Even supporters of the death penalty have complained that the executions should have been handled in a more decorous and civilised manner. US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice said Saddam’s execution ‘should have been handled with dignity’ and called for those taunting him to be punished.
Yet some American newspapers’ immediate response to Saddam’s death (before the unofficial mobile phone footage was released) was anything but dignified or civilised and, instead, showed much in common with the gloating, masked guards.
‘Yo, Saddam! Say Hi to Hitler’; ‘Saddam: the King of Swing’, were just two of the jeering headlines, and coverage was widely accompanied by pictures of Saddam with a noose around his neck.
The hangings in Iraq must finally give the lie to the idea that executions can ever be anything other than barbaric.
The reality is - whatever method is used; however sanitised it may appear - there is no civilised or dignified way for the State to snuff out the life of a human being. The hangings in Iraq are not an aberration but merely exposed the process in all its nasty glory: state-sponsored brutality, with revenge, rather than justice, at its heart.
Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith says: ‘I've unfortunately watched six people die - two gassed, two electrocuted, and two by the supposedly kinder, gentler use of the needle. Perhaps the most offensive execution I had to attend was Leslie Martin's, where the spectators chatted merrily away through the process, then cheered and clapped at the end. For the Bush administration to be sanctimonious about the ghastly tableaux of Saddam Hussein's execution is simple hypocrisy.’
Similarly, Country singer Steve Earle says he has ‘never completely recovered’ from witnessing an execution at the behest of the man who was to die.
Executions are about cowardice and fear, rather than morality and strength. The executions in Iraq show that the death penalty demeans not just those taking part but all of us.
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