Elie Wiesel Speaks On The Death Penalty
Says Moral Societies Should Not Be Agents Of Death
Acclaimed writer and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel was in Connecticut on Tuesday to speak about the death penalty. His visit comes as a New Haven jury is deciding whether to put Steven Hayes to death after his conviction in a brutal 2007 triple murder.
Students, faculty and guests packed Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan University to hear Elie Wiesel talk about Building an Ethical Society: The Death Penalty and Human Dignity. Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor. His parents and sister died in Nazi concentration camps.
He told the crowd that he understands the desire for vengeance, but that moral societies should not be agents of death. He spoke earlier in the day with reporters. " Its not easy. But a civilized society must know how to face such challenges and invent the proper reasons with respect and with compassion to defend this position."
Wiesel was asked how he’d talk about the death penalty with victims’ families. "I would say, look do you really think capital punishment will bring them back to life? If that could be done, I certainly would change my mind about this. But it cannot be done."
He stressed that victims’ families deserve special understanding. "We cannot deny their right to think the way they do and feel the way they do. But we must find the words and the proper words to tell them..look that’s not what makes us human."
Elie Wiesel is the author of more than fifty books, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize and a Professor at Boston University.
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Injustice and the death penalty: varied applications
It's important in this discussion to remember factors in addition to moral and religious ones: the proven fallibility, inequity, and class bias of the death penalty, in so far as the wealthy have greater access to persistent legal counsel and appeal, search for exonerating evidence, and so on.
Further distinctions: war crimes and genocide, hate violence, intimidation, and serious economic crimes -- all of which have deliberate intent to target and deprive masses of individuals and minority groups of their essential human rights to life, health, and security, as denoted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) and other statements.
These factors may not settle death penalty controversies over issues of retribution, rehabilitation, restitution, and prevention, but need inclusion in the discussion.
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