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Monash Memo - 30 May 2001

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Fighting the death penalty

The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law will become a hub for people interested in helping those facing the death penalty.

Castan Centre director Professor David Kinley said the centre would act as a conduit for students interested in travelling to the US to volunteer for the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Centre or joining the Australian chapter of Reprieve - organisations that aim to provide humanitarian and legal aid to people facing execution.

The announcement was made at a recent Castan Centre lecture 'Fighting the death penalty', presented by UK human rights lawyer and anti-death penalty advocate Mr Clive Stafford Smith.

Mr Stafford Smith, founder of the Crisis Assistance Centre in Louisiana, has spent the past 20 years focusing on race and death penalty issues in the southern states of the US.

He has fought for and defended more than 300 people on death row and said the death penalty was inhumane and achieved nothing.

"When the history books are written there is no doubt that the people sending people to be executed will be seen in the same light as people who burnt witches at the stake. They don't like it when I tell them that but it's true," he said.