Thread: Death penalty for Metro bombers in Belarus

Capital punishment in Belarus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some comments:
In 9x there were many bandits because of crush of the Soviet Union. Wild wealth accumulation period. Because of strict measures Belarus doesn't have organized crime today. Sometimes they try to appear, but they are executed. For example, in 2006 we can see 9 executions in statistics. That year several cases of criminal groups were finished.

Strict measures to the bandits is one of the reasons, why Lukashenko was so popular in 9x and at first became the President and at second changed the Constitution from parliamentary republic to presidential.

Originally Posted by Dmitry Khomitchuk

Capital punishment in Belarus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some comments:
In 9x there were many bandits because of crush of the Soviet Union. Wild wealth accumulation period. Because of strict measures Belarus doesn't have organized crime today. Sometimes they try to appear, but they are executed. For example, in 2006 we can see 9 executions in statistics. That year several cases of criminal groups were finished.

Strict measures to the bandits is one of the reasons, why Lukashenko was so popular in 9x and at first became the President and at second changed the Constitution from parliamentary republic to presidential.

I agree with what you are saying - Belarus is the safest country in Europe, actually.
I have never felt so safe late at night in a large city as I did in Minsk. Lukashenko has done a very good job with that.

I had another experience there that was really impressive. I forgot a small bag at the Ladies' in Gomel. (I know, how stupid & clumsy can one get...?) The bag contained an expensive ebook reader, a wallet with lots of Belarussian money and about 200 Euro. And a camera. Stupidly I did not realise until about 10 minutes later and ran back to the place. The lady who was in charge of the toilets said the next visitor handed in my bag. She had then gone looking for me in the station and when she did not see me she handed in the bag to the Police. I went to the police and they gave me the bag immediately and did not expect any handling fee or anything like that. Everything was there, including the money. This was not because I was a foreigner, they had no way of knowing that initially. I was totally impressed. When I insisted on giving the toilet lady 50 Euro as a finders fee, she first did not want to accept it (but I managed to convince her eventually, to take it in order to buy a gift to her children). Not sure whether this is typical for Belarus or not - but I found it very impressive.

It IS the Belarussian people's decision whether they want the death penalty in their country or not, but I just think it's a shame that there is one country in Europe that still uses the death penalty. It would be nicer to think that it was not used anywhere on this continent.
As for mode of execution, shooting the person seems somehow to be the least disgusting way of killing somebody (well, it's disgusting too, but not as much as the electrical chair, hanging them or injecting them with poison.)


Ok the comparison:

Number of people in Belarus: 9 mil
Number of executions in 2006: 9 executions

Number of people in the USA: 300 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 53

Ok - actually Belarus executes more people per capita per year than the USA, so my idea that the USA might be worse in this respect was wrong.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Number of people in Belarus: 9 mil
Number of executions in 2006: 9 executions

These are REALLY SCARY numbers for a small European country.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

These are REALLY SCARY numbers for a small European country.

Belarus is average size by European standards, neither large nor small.

Compare with:

Number of people in Saudi Arabia: 27 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 38

Number of people in the Singapore: 3.8 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 8

Not heard anyone complaining about executions there - but wait! One's got oil and is selling it to the powers to be in their preferred way... The other is a fininancial and shopping hub of Asia with good capitalist credentials - so they are exused too, right Eric?

Originally Posted by Hanna

Ok the comparison:

Number of people in Belarus: 9 mil
Number of executions in 2006: 9 executions

Number of people in the USA: 300 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 53

Ok - actually Belarus executes more people per capita per year than the USA, so my idea that the USA might be worse in this respect was wrong.

Number of people in Saudi Arabia: 27 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 38

Number of people in the Singapore: 3.8 mil. (in '06)
Number of executions in 2006: 8

I would rather compare how many people were murdered in these countries per million ppl and that with the lowest number would be the best in this competition. Anybody knows such statistics?

We should not compare Belarus with all states of the USA, because in many of them there is no capital punishment.
Let's compare Belarus with Oklahoma, infamous for its high executions per capita numbers.

Number of people in Belarus: 9 mil
Number of executions 1985-2010: 379 executions (the highest estimate which I found on Wikipedia)
Executions per year: 15,16
Executions per year per million people (rough estimate using current population): 1,68

Number of people in Oklahoma: 3,5 mil
Number of executions in 1976-2011: 96
Executions per year: 2,74
Executions per year per million people (rough estimate using current population): 0,78

We can see that Belarus scores 2 times higher than Oklahoma.
But note that number of executions in Belarus is declining sharply in the last decade, so I think it is no worse than Oklahoma now.

Now to Singapore.
Number of people in Singapore: 5 mil
Number of executions in 1991-2001: 410
Executions per year: 41
Executions per year per million people (rough estimate using current population): 8,2

OMG, Singapore scores 5 times higher than Belarus.

Number of people in Saudi Arabia: 27 mil
Number of executions in 2007-2010: 345
Executions per year: 86,25
Executions per year per million people (rough estimate using current population): 3,2

So we may order these countries like this:
Oklahoma (USA) < Belarus < Saudi Arabia < Singapore