The only remaining European country that still employs the death penalty is Belarus, a landlocked nation in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Belarus, also known as the Republic of Belarus, is one of the last vestiges of capital punishment in Europe.
Belarus does not have a written law and rarely acknowledges or releases public information or reports on their use of the death penalty. Although the country has periodically suspended its use of the death penalty, such moratoriums have not been upheld in recent years.
Amnesty International has reported that Belarus continues to execute individuals, the majority of whom were convicted of grave crimes. As of 2019, the death penalty has been abolished in every other European country.
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Can you still be guillotined in France?
No, being guillotined is no longer used as a form of capital punishment in France or anywhere else in the world. The last public execution using a guillotine in France took place on June 17, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi was executed.
However, France was the last country to use the guillotine in a public execution. The guillotine was introduced by Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a more humane way of carrying out the death penalty, but it was abolished in France in 1981.
In 1981, the French National Assembly unanimously voted to abolish the death penalty — including the guillotine — with the exception of certain cases of war crimes. Although the guillotine is no longer used as a form of capital punishment in France, it is still considered a symbol of the country and its revolutionary history.
When was the last public execution in France?
The last public execution in France took place on June 17th, 1939, when Eugen Weidmann was executed by the guillotine in Versailles, a suburb of Paris. The execution was attended by nearly 6,000 people and marked the end of public executions in France.
Public executions had been a common practice in France since the reign of Louis XIV, and continued as a widely used form of capital punishment until the end of the 19th century. Although public executions had long been seen by some as a deterrent to crime, they had become increasingly controversial in the first part of the 20th century, and the execution of Weidmann brought this discussion to a head.
Following his execution, the government of France moved away from the practice of public executions, and the discretion to allow them has since been held by the Minister of Justice.
Why is there no death penalty in Germany?
The death penalty is illegal in Germany and has been for many years. In 1949, Germany’s post-World War II constitution stated that “human dignity is inviolable,” and this phrase was later used to form the basis for abolishing capital punishment.
In 1949, the new German government decided to completely ban capital punishment, even as member countries of the European Economic Community reinstated it in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the German government began to codify its ban on capital punishment, with the Federal Constitutional Court eventually ruling in 1994 that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
Additionally, the popular sentiment in Germany is against the death penalty. Many people believe that the death penalty should not be used because it fails to address the societal issues that drive crime, it is not proven to be an effective deterrent, and it runs the risk of resulting in the execution of innocent people.
Others, including the Roman Catholic Church, oppose it on moral grounds, believing that all life is sacred and that the death penalty is irrevocable and thus violates the dignity of human life, an idea enshrined in Germany’s constitution.
In recent years, the German government has continued to oppose all forms of the death penalty, and has harshly criticized countries that use it. Germany often sends representatives to countries with the death penalty to educate them on its illegality and denounce its use.
When was Germany’s last execution?
As of 2020, Germany’s last execution was carried out in 1981. The federal republic of Germany abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 1949, and the last execution took place on May 2, 1981 in Brandenburg-Goppeln.
The individual executed was convicted murderer Walter Selbmann. Following his execution, Germany declared a permanent moratorium on capital punishment in 1988. Despite this, capital punishment remains a legal measure in Germany’s legal system, however, no executions have been carried out in the decades since 1981.
