You are invited to a special online event on:
April 12th, 2025 at 12:30pm EST):
The poster included with this page provides QR codes. You can use these to register for either Zoom and YouTube, or you can click on the link below where you will find more information about the event, including about the three panelists, John Packer, Payam Akhavan and Ezat Mossallanejad.
We will explore questions about the absolute, inherent, irrevocable nature of human rights. We will discuss how the death penalty is not an act in and of itself, unique, discrete, hidden by prison walls as if it has nothing to do with the rest of us.
What is the retentionist state saying when it takes a life? That it’s strong and decisive and doing what the public wants and needs? Or admitting its futility, its pretense, its utterly vacated imagination.
Or when the state is taking a life, is something far more disturbing being said? That a state’s power to erase lives somehow feels much more threatening than anything a heinous individual or criminal collective has done.
A monstrous criminal cannot (isn’t interested in, hasn’t the resources to) erase an entire population’s rights to speak, assemble, hold an opinion, have beliefs, have dignity and worth, have secure housing and adequate health care and fair and equal education. Only the state can do that.
Only the state can determine which sectors of its society is worth recognizing, understanding, listening to, including. And beware if one is is a racial minority, an Indigenous person, a child, a woman, a labourer, a journalist, a lawyer, an immigrant, a student with a green card, a tattoo artist with a travel visa, an actor, a Jew or Palestinian, someone poor or unemployed, someone divergent in any number of ways, someone who has spray-painted an oligarch’s brand. The retentionist state can and does say, simply, ‘Watch out.’
Not that the retentionist state will execute any of those people. But every person who has been sentenced to death had a beginning somewhere.
Please join us. Please get the word out to others. Come with questions and comments.
This is the 3rd in a 10-part series, if you missed the previous event on March 8 you are able to watch the recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nPZPqeErKE
Partners
Amnesty International Canada | English Speaking https://amnesty.ca/
Carleton University Youth & Justice Lab https://carleton.ca/law/youthandjusticelab/
The Human Rights Research and Education Centre https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/hrrec
The Canadian International Council | Saskatchewan Branch https://thecic.org/saskatoon/
The Mardom Foundation https://mardomfoundation.org/
The Paivand Society https://www.paivand-society.ca/
This Series is Presented by ‘United Against Executions in Iran/Unis contre les exécutions en Iran’
We are a network of Iranian-Canadian and Amnesty Canada groups and supporters. Our goal is the abolition of the death penalty in Iran. Our methods include public education initiatives, advocating non-partisan conversations in Parliament, urging more effective actions by the Government of Canada, joining forces with networks like ours in North America and beyond, and persuading local organizations to speak out – to act out – on this urgent issue.
Ending executions in Iran will be a giant step in abolishing the death penalty everywhere.
Amnesty International Saskatchewan 