Murder Victims Families For Human Rights

[CCADP]

www.murdervictimsfamilies.org/

is Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights?

Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights is an international, non-governmental organization of family members of victims of criminal murder, terrorist killings, state executions, extrajudicial assassinations, and “disappearances” working to oppose the death penalty from a human rights perspective.

Membership is open to all victims’ family members who oppose the death penalty in all cases. “Friend of MVFHR” membership is open to all those interested in joining our efforts. Membership forms are available here.
www.willsworld.com/~mvfhr/membersh.htm#Membership Forms in PDF format for use as handouts

Based in the United States, MVFHR’s work takes place both in this country and abroad. We focus on domestic work not simply because our headquarters are here in the U.S. but because in the international death penalty debate, it is considered significant that the United States still carries out executions. Abolishing the death penalty in this country would send an enormous message worldwide.

Why a human rights framework for
death penalty abolition work?

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to life. Article 5 states that no person shall be subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The death penalty violates both these human rights.

By definition, human rights cannot be either granted or denied by a government. By framing the death penalty as a human rights issue rather than a criminal justice issue, we are saying that whatever form of government a nation has, whatever the assumptions or policies of its criminal justice system, it should not be allowed to take the lives of its own citizens. Thinking of the death penalty this way takes it out of the realm of specific criminal justice systems and places it in the realm of international human rights standards, which transcend national borders and are based in our common humanity across the globe.

MVFHR believes that the anti-death penalty movement in the United States can draw strength from this international human rights framework and from solidarity and partnership with those who are working against the death penalty in other countries ­­­– and not just in countries that no longer have the death penalty, but also in countries that still retain it. In viewing the issue this way, we are building upon the work of human rights, anti-death penalty, and victims’ activists in this country and around the world.

We believe that survivors of homicide victims have a recognized stake in the debate over how societies respond to murder and have the moral authority to call for a consistent human rights ethic as part of that response. Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights is the answer to that call.

[CCADP]

A Message from Renny Cushing, Executive Director

Dear Friend:

I had an extraordinary conversation last spring during a visit to Japan. In the midst of a hectic series of public talks, I stopped to have a personal conversation with a man named Masaharu Harada, whose brother was murdered a few years ago. Until we met, Mr. Harada had never spoken with another murder victim’s family member who opposed the death penalty as he did.

Mr. Harada told me about his decision to speak out publicly against the execution of his brother’s murderer, even though he had never known anyone else who had expressed such a view. I told Mr. Harada that he wasn’t alone – that all over the world there were survivors of murder victims who felt as he does. I showed him some of our pictures, told him some of our stories. I told him that we’ve all felt isolated at times, and that joining together in shared pain and shared belief makes all the difference.

I don’t know Japanese and Mr. Harada doesn’t know English, but some of what we had to say to each other didn’t need to be translated. Even before the interpreter’s words reached us, we were understanding each other through the expressions on our faces and the tears that filled our eyes.

Speaking with Mr. Harada across the barrier of language and culture, feeling our shared grief and shared aversion to responding to that grief with more violence, I knew that the issue of victims and the death penalty transcends national borders. I knew that the death penalty is more than a political issue and more than a criminal justice issue. It is a human rights issue, and what group has greater moral authority to call for a consistent human rights ethic in responding to violence than victims’ family members, who know exactly how devastating it is when the most basic human right is violated.

Out of this realization, a new organization was born. On December 10, 2004, International Human Rights Day, several long-time victim abolitionists and I came together to form a new international organization called Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights. This is an organization of family members of victims of individual homicide, execution, terrorist killings, extrajudicial assassinations, and “disappearances,” all of whom oppose the death penalty.

All are welcome to join us as we work toward a world that upholds, rather than denies, the value of human life. Join as a founding member or founding friend between now and the next international human rights day – December 10, 2005 – and make history with us as we launch this exciting new endeavor.

Together, we can show Mr. Harada and others like him that there are victims all across the globe who have suffered the loss of a family member to murder or execution and share the belief that the death penalty is not the answer. Together we can pledge to end the death penalty in the United States and around the world.

In solidarity,

Renny Cushing