ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY The murder of Canny Ong was indisputably shocking and barbaric. However, the death penalty meted to the perpetrator is just as barbaric and amoral. The death penalty is a glaring instance of State amorality and cold-bloodedness at its worst. Since 1976, every year at least 3 countries have abolished the death penalty and today over half of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty. This worldwide trend towards abolition is reflected by the UN Human Rights Commission’s Resolution calling for the suspension of all executions towards final abolition. The State-sponsored extinguishing of human lives is not a solution to the problem of crime. Studies have consistently shown that there is no evidence that the death penalty effectively deters crime. As this punishment is irreversible, we run the horrendous risk of executing innocent persons. For example since 1973, more than 100 condemned persons have been released in the US due to credible fresh evidence. The infliction of the death penalty upon its citizens by the State, reduces it to the level of a savage. It reiterates the very crime which it seeks to mark as reprehensible and the solution it arrives at is thus inconsequent to the problem it addresses. The statistics in Malaysia are shocking as 358 people have been hanged over the past 24 years. We call for an immediate cessation of this brutal punishment. We call for a suspension of all executions pending abolition of the death penalty. We call for this in the name of Humanity. N. Surendran Charles Hector Salbiah Ahmad   for  Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (MADPET)   24th  February 2005