Reportage – 2006

Dalai Lama appeals for amnesty for Saddam Hussein

TOKYO, Japan, 12 November 2006 — The Dalai Lama, opposing capital punishment and reiterating his appeal for its abolition, called for amnesty for the deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for the death sentence against him.

"The death penalty seems to fulfill a preventive function, yet it is clearly a form of revenge," he said in his hotel in Tokyo, winding his two-week visit to the country.

"However horrible the act any person may have committed, everyone has the potential to improve and correct himself."

Ousted from power during a US-led invasion in 2003, Saddam was found guilty, by an Iraqi court on November 5th, of killing 148 Shiites in an Iraqi village in 1982 after an assassination attempt. The court has sentenced Saddam to death by hanging.

The execution is expected to take place before the end of 2006.

The Dalai Lama commended the stand of the European Union, who opposes the death penalty, and who calls on Iraq to refrain from carrying out the death sentence passed on Saddam Hussein.

The Dalai Lama feels that any criminal activity can be prevented in society without having to resort to the death penalty, and hopes that in the case of Saddam Hussein, as with all others, that human life will be respected and spared.