<p>After it was reported last week that the Myanmar military government had sentenced to death 7 students from Dagon University in Yangon who participated in anti-junta protests, students in Chiang Mai went to the US Consulate and the Myanmar Consulate to file petitions protesting the death sentences.</p>

<p>2021 saw a worrying rise in executions and death sentences as some of the world&rsquo;s most prolific executioners returned to business as usual and courts were unshackled from Covid-19 restrictions, Amnesty International said in its annual review of the death penalty.</p>

<p>As debates on the death penalty begin in the House of Representatives today, Southeast Asian parliamentarians urgently called upon members of the Philippine Congress to strongly oppose efforts aimed at reintroducing capital punishment in the country.</p>

<p>Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Thakur were executed today for the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in 2012. These executions mark a disheartening development in use of the death penalty in India. There is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a particular deterrent to crime, and its use will not eradicate violence against women in India, said Amnesty International India today.</p>

<div>Responding to the news that Thailand executed a 26-year-old man for aggravated murder on 18 June, in the country’s first execution since August 2009, Katherine Gerson, Amnesty International’s Thailand Campaigner, said:</div> <div> </div> <div>“This is a deplorable violation of the right to life. Thailand is reneging on its own commitment to move towards the abolition of the death penalty, and is putting itself out of step with the current global shift away from capital punishment.</div> <div> </div>

<p dir="ltr">“The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day...”, Albert Camus, L'Étranger.</p> <p></p>

<div>To prevent politicians from committing severe corruption, the death penalty will be enshrined in an organic law of the junta-backed draft charter.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>On 2 November 2016, Meechai Ruchuphan, the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), announced the CDC has been drafting the organic law for political parties — one of the most crucial laws of the junta-sponsored draft charter, <a href="http://news.voicetv.co.th/thailand/427947.html">reported</a> Voice TV. </div>

<p><span>Over the past year, Southeast Asia has witnessed significant setbacks with regard to the abolition of the death penalty, FIDH said in a new report published today, on the occasion of the 14th World Day Against the Death Penalty.</span><br /><br /><span>The report, titled “</span><a> </a></p>

<p>More than 300 lawyers, NGO workers, journalists, state officials, academics, activists, and others from around the globe met to encourage efforts to end the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ in justice systems by abolishing the use of capital punishment in Asia and elsewhere. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<div title="Page 1"> <p>Kuala Lumpur, 4th of June 2015 – Anti-death penalty advocates from around the globe will congregate in Malaysia on June 11 and 12 to discuss the foremost violation of the right to life.</p> <p>The Asian Regional Congress on the Death Penalty, co-organised by Ensemble contre la peine de mort (Together Against the Death Penalty, ECPM) and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) is an effort to encourage countries in Asia to move with the global trend and join the rest of the world in abolishing the death penalty.</p> </div>