Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
(CUADP) is pleased for forward this important press release. Thanks for
your attention....
--abe
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
800-973-6548
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Texas Moratorium Network
14804 Moonseed Cove,
Austin, Texas 78728
www.texasmoratorium.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 24 , 2002
Contact: Scott Cobb (512-302-6715)
Unfair Death Penalty Causes Texas to Lose 2007 Pan-American Games
Today's decision by delegates representing the 42 nations that make up
the Pan American Sports Organization to award the 2007 Pan American Games
to Rio de Janeiro instead of San Antonio reflects growing international
disgust with the death penalty in Texas. The strong leadership of Mexican
President Fox, demonstrated by his cancellation of a scheduled visit to
Texas in protest of the August 14th execution of a Mexican citizen,
coupled with Texas' loss of the Pan American Games, should motivate Texas
leaders to conduct a serious re-evaluation of the Death Penalty. Texas
will continue to be punished by the international community, unless it
enacts a moratorium on executions and takes steps to make the system fair.
"Governor Perry made a major blunder by refusing to stay Javier Suarez
Medina's execution and then going to Mexico to ask the nations of Latin
America to send their people to San Antonio for the Pan American Games",
said Scott Cobb, Political Director of Texas Moratorium Network. "The
PASO delegates, representing the people of Latin America, sent a message
that Texas needs to clean up its act. They apparently felt that the Pan
American Games should be awarded to a country where participants and
international sports fans, especially from Latin America, will not be in
danger of having their human rights violated by the host nation."
"The Texas death penalty has now cost the people of Texas hundreds, if
not thousands, of jobs that would have been created by staging the Pan
American Games in San Antonio. This should be a wake-up call for Texas.
We Texans can not continue to violate international law by executing
people after we violate their legal rights to consult with their
consulates and by executing juvenile offenders", said Cobb.
Violations of consular notification rights and executions of juvenile
offenders are both prohibited by treaties to which the United States is
bound. Texas is virtually the only place on Earth that continues to
execute people who commit crimes under the age of 18.
- Oswaldo Regalado Soriano, is a citizen of Mexico, who is on Texas death
row for a crime he committed at the age of 17.
- Ricardo Aldape Guerra was a completely innocent citizen of Mexico who
spent 15 years on Texas' death row before being fully exonerated and
released in 1997.
- 66 % of all people on death row in Texas are minorities.
Texas Moratorium Network, an organization with a growing support base of
more than 8,000 people across the state of Texas, is working to establish
a moratorium on executions, so that a Texas Capital Punishment Commission
can conduct a comprehensive study of the death penalty system in our
state.
(source: TMN)
FORWARDED BY:
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director, CUADP
