SOUTH KOREA. CAMPAIGN STARTS TO SCRAP DEATH PENALTY

September 18, 2007: Religious, human rights and civic groups called in South Korea for the government's abolishment of capital punishment and its signing a global treaty against the system.
Twenty civic groups including Amnesty International and Lawyers for a Democratic Society asked the government to join the moratorium on executions introduced at the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.
``The adoption of such a resolution by the U.N.'s principal organ would be an important milestone toward the abolition of the death penalty,'' the Association for the Abolishment of the Death Penalty said.
The association will hold a 100-day campaign, as the government is yet reluctant to show its standpoint.
Korea has the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who leads the world's human rights. Still, it has 64 people sentenced to death,'' Kim Ho-soo, the human rights watch dog's campaigner, said. (Sources: Koreatimes, 18/09/2007)