Reprieve supports preventing return of the death penalty

6 October 2008

Dear Friends and Supporters of Reprieve Australia

Please take five minutes to send an email in support of Federal Labor backbencher and Government Whip, Chris Hayes, who is sponsoring a motion in the House of Representatives calling for a legislative bar to the reintroduction of the death penalty in Australia, for the Justice Minister to direct Australian Federal Police not to knowingly expose Australian citizens to the death penalty, and for Australia to give a consistent message of opposition to the application of the death penalty in the region.

Read the ABC report of the motion.

Read Chris Hayes' first comment to Parliament here, and his second comment to Parliament.

It is disappointing that, with World Anti-Death Penalty Day soon upon us (10 October), the Prime Minister and Attorney-General have chosen to re-state the limitations to this Government's opposition to the death penalty. Their comments were reported by the ABC and The Age.

Please send a message to Chris Hayes directly, supporting his efforts and encouraging him to pursue the motion. His email address is Chris.Hayes.MP@aph.gov.au. Please copy the email to the Prime Minister (contact details here), the Attorney General (R.McClelland.MP@aph.gov.au, and your local MP and state Senators.

You can identify your MP here, find your MP's email addresses here, and your Senators' email addresses here. In some instances, you might only be able to send the email by a specific form, in which case simply note that you are providing a copy of an email that you have sent to Chris Hayes MP and then paste that email into the message.

Please include your address in your sign-off so your MP and Senators understand that you are in their electorates.

Please avoid abusive, inflammatory or derogatory language in your email as it will simply do no good at all and will damage the campaign.

Please fell free to pass this email on to anyone else you think might be interested in joining the campaign.

If you would like to follow a sample email, please cut and paste the following (and use the subject line - Oppose the Death Penalty):

Dear Mr Hayes

I commend your stance against the death penalty and call on the Government and Opposition parties to take a principled and consistent position in explicitly opposing the death penalty in all circumstances, in all jurisdictions. I have been disappointed by the comments recently attributed to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General that anyone, because of the notoriety of their crime or because of their nationality, should be abandoned to execution.

I support your proposal that Australia should seek to bar any legislative return to the death penalty in any of its jurisdictions, and I agree that the Australian Federal Police should be directed never to put any Australian (or any other person) knowingly at risk of the death penalty.

It is also appropriate that these matters be discussed at this time, with the advent of World Anti-Death Penalty Day on 10 October.

Yours sincerely,

[Name]

[Address]

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