Translated by: Kazi Niaz Ahmed
Very recently, few states have annulled the provision of capital punishment to renounce heinous crimes within their jurisdiction. I specifically refer to the case of the ‘United States of Europe’. Citing this example, some are arguing that a harsh penalty like the death sentence is a violation of human rights. I must say that they are coming from their own logical point of view. Nevertheless, we do need to put things into perspective in light of history. If mild punishment works, what is the need to go for severe ones? Once upon a time in Europe—especially in England—even petty theft was punishable by the death penalty. Even for stealing mere 5 pounds, people were sent to the gallows. We do not know the exact date of inception of this law; but till the beginning of the 19th century, this law had not been made void. Moreover, before 1825 A.D., the workers of England—the land of the industrial revolution—did not have the right to form Trade Unions. If anyone dared to organize such a union, he was punished. The retribution, it should be registered, was Death!
We know from Sir Thomas More’s magnum opus—‘Utopea’—that in 15th century England, people were hanged to death in the thousands for trivial larceny. A character of that book, whose trade was law by the way, informs us that in England the universal penalty of theft was death. There were days when the same gallows was used to hang up to twenty burglars. After all these years we cannot even begin to fathom the sheer number of people who had walked the gallows.
King Henry VIII ascended to the English throne in the year 1509. During his rule alone, one historian showed, 72,000 thieves were given capital punishment in England. Yet, did it help in curving the spread of thievery or the frequency of theft? Sir More’s imaginary lawyer testifies otherwise. Thomas More finished his work in 1516. The aforementioned character of his book expressed his surprise at the fact that, though only a handful of crooks were able to avoid the long hand of the law, there was no reduction in the number of new thieves. He was utterly perplexed by this paradox.
By now, not only in England but also in Europe, death penalty has been phased out. It would not be wrong to assume that petty theft has also reduced in these countries. Why and how? That is something to ponder about. Sir More’s advice was to terminate the capital punishment. His logic was: instead of hanging them indiscriminately, if people were provided with some honest means of living, then the severity of stealing would certainly go down. He argues, men steal, most of the time, for survival. They can even risk their lives to make a living. And indeed, many of them do die. Nonetheless, if one had alternative ways to feed oneself, s/he would not opt for shady activities. But, England did not heed to the advice of Thomas More. Neither did Europe. After all these years, now Europe has found its conscience. Now the European conscience agrees that death penalty is a definite violation of human rights. No matter how severe and grisly the crime is, capital punishment must not be rendered. Bear in mind, it took Europe at least 500 years to come to this conclusion.
Things should become clearer by asking another question. Why did the United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, adopt the document called the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (UDHR) only in 1948? There is no short answer to this inquiry. In broad, it could be said that if the two great wars had not ravaged Europe, the UDHR would have taken more time to surface. Even this document does not declare the death penalty as a breach of human rights. What was the period when the war criminals amongst the German and Japanese civil and military leaders were being sentenced to death? Was it not during the time when the UDHR was in the process of adoption? If the history of Europe teaches us anything, it is that capital punishment cannot be a remedy against burglary. Moreover, there is no panacea other than establishing justice and equity within the society. Where there is equality, why would people starve to death? And where is the need to steal for people in such a land? The ‘reign of destitution’ and the ‘rule of law’ are mutually exclusive. Therefore, in a county where justice prevails, the prevalence of theft must come down—even, it could cease to exist.
We can look at the provision of death penalty from another angle and that prism is birth control. Europe currently faces a demographic problem. In almost all the countries of this continent, the rate of population growth has taken a significant fall. But the population of Bangladesh is increasing. Keep in mind, the problem of population is not uni-dimensional but bi-dimensional. We can learn from the chronicles of Europe that with economic growth and material development, people willfully reduce the size of their families. But, in countries like ours the westerners are preaching that population control will be followed by economic and material prosperity by leaps and bounds. All praises be for ‘birth-governance’! We may draw analogy of this to crime and punishment as well. Social progress has helped in banning capital punishment in Europe. Notwithstanding, we are being told that the end of death penalty might ensure social advancement for us. The proposition, no doubt, warrants our thought. But, the problem is that we do not live in two separate worlds, rather share the same one. In this one world only the establishment of just and true system can eradicate death penalty. The arrest of death penalty had heralded just society—there has been no such example in human annals thus far.Dr. Salimullah Khan is an eminent intellectual of the country. He currently teaches at the University of Liberal Arts (ULAB), Dhaka. This article was originally published in the Bangla magazine ‘Sorbojon’ titled “Manobadhikar O Mrittudondo Bishoyok Odhikontu”. Translated and published with the consent of the author.
