By David Swanson
Sweden banned censorship and guaranteed free speech in 1766, 10 years before the Declaration of Independence in the American British colonies, and—apart from shameful episodes of caving in to dictatorships and Nazis—has pretty well kept it in place. Sweden banned the death penalty and has not used it since 1910. Now, Sweden has an opportunity to punish the speech of a Nobel Peace Prize nominee with the death penalty by extraditing Julian Assange to the United States to be put on trial.

By Australian Coalition Against Death Penalty
Australian politicians claim that executing Australian citizens is barbaric and seeks clemency, yet the execution of non-Australians is acceptable. Racist? Discrimination? 
The death penalty around the world has two faces - one is in the international spotlight and the other is hidden from view. 
 

By Dorina Lisson (ACADP)
Public beheadings are taking place twice daily in Saudi Arabia. The Justice Minister Mohammed Al Eissa, has defended tough Sharia punishments such as beheading, cutting off hands, and lashing claiming they; "cannot be changed because they are enshrined in Islamic law. These punishments are based on divine religious texts and we cannot change them," he said recently during a speech in Washington, USA

by Amy Goodman  
Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 29 years. Now, a court rules his sentencing unconstitutional. When will we learn?  Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther party member, has spent 29 years on death row, convicted for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

State executions resumed this week in the United States despite the botching of some earlier executions. States that condone and practice the execution of convicted criminals are openly defying their own written law.