Council of Europe warns Turkey over death penalty plans

STRASBOURG - Agence France-Presse

The Council of Europe warned Turkey against re-establishing the death penalty on Oct. 30. 

“Executing the death penalty is incompatible with membership of the Council of Europe,” the 47-member organization, which includes Turkey, tweeted a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his government would ask parliament to consider reintroduction.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz added to the Council’s warning, denouncing Turkey for considering a move that would “slam the door shut to the European Union.”

“The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane form of punishment, which has to be abolished worldwide and stands in clear contradiction to European values,” Kurz told the Austrian Press Agency.
   
Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland had in August warned Ankara about reinstating capital punishment, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has ratified, clearly excluded it.

The Convention, signed in 1983, excludes capital punishment except in time of war or imminent threat of war and a 2002 protocol ended the time-of-war proviso.