Archive for April, 2004

This year too, a humongous blood bath will take place on Canadian ice. At the end of March seal trappers will start clubbing another 350,000 young seals to death. Usually around 80% of the seals killed in the commercial hunt are “young of the year” – between approximately 12 days and one year old.

The Canadian government has granted permission for this mass murder to take place and has set the quota higher than in previous years.
This barbaric act will take place until the end of May.

There are two main (non)reasons that the Canadian government uses to justify their decision and quota:

1. Creation of jobs

A commonly used reason for supporting the hunt is that it supposedly provides jobs for people in Newfoundland. However in reality, the hunt accounts for less than one half of one percent of Newfoundland?s Gross Domestic Product. Economists note that factors such as government-funded icebreaking services and lost revenue from tourism should be included in economic reports of the industry, and could mean the commercial seal hunt represents a net loss to the economy of Atlantic Canada.

Many people are surprised to learn that the entire fishery in Newfoundland accounts for only 1.6% of their economy. Certainly, the fishery, including the seal hunt, once played a vital role in the economic survival of the province. However, this is no longer the situation. Newfoundland?s economy has diversified to include many other, far more lucrative, industry sectors such as tourism, services, construction, public administration, manufacturing, and many more.

The sealing industry operates for a few weeks a year and provides a relatively small number of part-time jobs during that period. The seal hunt is not of vital importance to Newfoundland?s economy and does not represent meaningful job creation by the government. If Newfoundland is going to continue to develop in the changing Canadian economy, it is imperative that the federal government makes a solid commitment to the development of real, sustainable jobs – not pointless slaughter

2. Economic impact on fishery

Although the Canadian government and fishing industry claim that seals in the North Atlantic must be culled because they eat too many cod, they don’t back up this claim with good science. In fact, in 1994, two of the government’s own scientists reported that the true cause of the depletion of cod in the North Atlantic was over-fishing. Ecosystems are complex?in fact, seals also eat cod predators (other fish), so removing seals might even worsen the cod stock’s condition.

It’s more convenient for the government and the fishing industry to scapegoat seals than it is for them to address the serious problem of over-fishing. It also provides an excuse for the government’s controversial support of a massive seal hunt.

The Canadian government is using the seal as a scapegoat!

Help!

This barbaric slaughter has to stop! If you have a little bit of spare time and don’t mind the stamp, do write to the Canadian embassy to protest.
By writing a protest letter, you can help the seals.

Sample protest letter below:

Most countries are relaxing their trade-rules and the newly signed FTAs are good examples of that. There are hardly any sanctions against China for violation of global human rights anymore and the EU has even planned to lift sanctions for the trade of weapons with China. More and more, trade with China is considered acceptable from a moral standing point, but on the other hand China hardly shows improvement in their stance towards human rights.

China is with at least 726 executions in 2003 by far the leader in the execution of death penalties. The real number is probably much higher, according to Amnesty International. A prominent Chinese member of parliament mentioned a short time ago that almost 10,000 death penalties were executed per year. Amnesty itself estimates the real number to be around 15,000. This figure is based on internal Chinese Communist Party documents that indicate that an average of 15,000 people per year were executed, judicial or extrajudicial, by the government between 1997 and 2001. This is one in every 86,000 Chinese residents.

With these numbers, China is the worlds ‘leader’ by far. Just for the record, next in the list of ‘reported’ death penalties are:

• Iran – 108
• USA – 65
• Vietnam – 64

Not only is the death penalty, the most cruel degrading punishment: It violates one of the most basic human rights: The right to life.

Executing death penalty also carries the risk that innocent people are killed. Since 1973, 113 people that were previously sentenced to death were acquitted of a charge after additional evidence was found. Returning elements in these cases are procedural mistakes, unreliable testimonies, confessions under pressure and an inadequate defense.

According to Amnesty’s report, prisoners in China are often denied immediate legal representation and sentenced to death based on confessions extracted under extreme forms of torture. An almost “perfect” conviction rate (99.1 percent for all crimes within a recent five-year period) illustrates enormous potential for executing the innocent. Furthermore, in 1997 China expanded the legal scope of the death penalty, applying it to broader sets of circumstances. Sixty-nine percent of capital crimes defined in China’s criminal law are non-violent.

I strongly support the current US consideration to back a resolution condemning China’s human rights record at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

My declaration of life

• I believe that the killing of one human being by another is morally wrong.
• I believe it is morally wrong for any state or other governmental entity to take the life of a human being for any reason
• I believe that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime and serves only the purpose of revenge.

Related links:

• Executed “according to law”? The death penalty in China
• Amnesty’s take on the death penalty
• 2003 human rights report – China