28th April, 2015
Rev Dr Olav Fyske Tveit, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has appealed to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for clemency for 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution.
In a letter dated today, Rev Dr Tveit said he joined "many others" around the world who had already appealed for clemency for Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Nigerians Raheem Agbaje Salami, Okwudili Oyatanze, Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise (alias Mustafa) and Martin Anderson (alias Belo), Filipino Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, Indonesian Zainal Abidin, Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, and Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui.
“Despite the crimes of which they have been convicted, these sisters and brothers are all children of God, created in God”s own image," he said.
Rev Dr Tveit said the Indonesia’s decision to resume executions put it "against the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty" and asked the President to establish "an immediate moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty and joining this emerging global consensus".
In an earlier appeal, Bishop Ketut Waspada, of the Christian Protestant Church in Bali, said that the death penalty "put God’s authority into question" and took away people’s chance to change their lives.
Bishop Waspada has been personally ministering to some of the death row prisoners, added: “Let us ask ourselves deep in our hearts: do we, as human being, really have the authority to take the lives of other people? I think only God has the authority to continue or to end the lives of His creations."
– DAVID ADAMS
