CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY Lisandre Bujold-Dubuc

After the sordid execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, whose demand of leniency has been refused by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, the question remains more than ever: how a country supposedly highly civilized, namely the United States, can allow such a cruel, inhuman practice?

In the case of Williams, we can see without a doubt that the man (who always claimed his innocence), no matter his mind state when he was sent to jail, has since then accomplished totally positive things that brought him nominations for the Nobel Price for Peace.

Other prisoners are far from staying inactive behind bars. It's the case of Kenneth Foster, member of the DRIVE Movement and founder of formerly VFL (Vision For Life), which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. He fights not only for his case but for the anti-death penalty cause, as well as for the cases of fellow inmates on death row. He's an artist: he writes incredibly beautiful poetry; he's also a social-political activist, he's writing astonishing articles...

As you can see, death row inmates do not only have a human face (yes, yes ladies and gentlemen, they are human beings, whether Bush and his infamous Texas Killing Machine believe it or not!, but they also creating fabulous masterpieces, they write, they speak in the name of their people and the prisoner community, they are working to prove their innocence or simply to show the world that no matter what they did, it's horrible and unconstitutional, properly criminal, to take their lives. To kill them constitute in a premeditated murder!

But no matter if they're guilty or not, nothing in this world justifies that we oppose death by death, that we push violence with even more violence. Nothing justifies consciously taking another man's life. What makes capital punishment even more unacceptable is the fact that it's irreversible, so in the case of a legal mistake, the harm is done forever, with no possibility to go back.

The use of the capital punishment in the United States is not something to play with. It's not a simple question of administration: human lives are in danger!

If you wish to make a change, you can make the difference, by writing to the governors of the concerned states, signing petitions or writing to death row inmates! So, don't wait!

D.R.I.V.E.

DEATH Row INNER-COMMUNALIST VANGUARD ENGAGEMENT