Karel Schwarzenberg: The death penalty cannot exist in a civilized country

Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Czech Parliament, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg arrived to Minsk on 7th, October.

Here he will take part in the activities in the framework of the week against the death penalty in Belarus, which is an organized campaign "Human rights defenders against the death penalty".

In the evening Mr. Schwarzenberg attended the opening of the photo exhibition "Capital punishment", by journalist Sergei Balaj in Minsk. It was dedicated to the exceptional measure of punishment which is still used in Belarus, states BelaPAN.

Giving a speech that evening, the Member of Parliament stressed that the death penalty "is not a matter of confrontation between East and West, as many people think". Mr. Schwarzenberg said that death penalty is applied both in China and in the United States.

"It's a question of education, as we need to understand the importance of human life and not to kill for any reasons, - he underlined, - I believe that in the XXI century, given the level of civilization that we have achieved today, death penalty cannot be tolerated in a civilized European country."

"I was born in the XX century, in a terrible 1937, - Mr. Schwarzenberg said. - I know how many people had been executed in Germany, Russia and other countries by the time I graduated from school, and this is already a reason important enough for me to start advocating against the death penalty. I do not understand how anyone who lived in the XX century and remembers how many great people have been punished by death, can approve the death penalty in principle. It is true that death penalty existed in Europe after World War II, but even then there were people who began to speak out against such form of punishment."

The former head of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that in recent years he has worked with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. He was dealing with the protection of human rights in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, Turkey, the United States and many other countries. "No authorities in any state have the right to execute its citizens", - said Mr. Schwarzenberg.

Karel Schwarzenberg was a close friend and ally of the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, writer, human rights activist ,Vaclav Havel. Mr. Schwarzenberg was the head of public administration of the Czech president in 1990-1992, and he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic in 2007-2010.

Mr. Schwarzenberg visited Belarus for the first time in 2009. Being the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, he strongly condemned the dispersal of the opposition rally on the day of the presidential elections in Minsk in 2010. His thoughts were reflected in a joint article "Lukashenko lost", which was published with such co-authors as the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland, and Sweden. The article was published in the New York Times a few days after the events in the Belarusian capital.