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‘Road Trip’ speakers
promote abolition of death penalty
An exonerated death row inmate and a
representative of Amnesty International discussed the flaws of the
death penalty and promoted its abolition last week during the
Springfield stop of the two-week statewide Road Trip for Justice.
Delbert Tibbs described the events
surrounding what is believed to be a wrongful conviction that landed
him on Florida’s death row, while Robert Schultz, Membership Field
Organizer for the Midwest Regional Office of Amnesty International,
reported on recent progress in the campaign to abolish the death
penalty.
Amnesty International and the
Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty co-sponsored the event,
which was held on March 24 at the Heartland Peace Center, 830 S.
College.
Schultz said that the abolition of
the death penalty in the United States is one of four domestic human
rights priorities of Amnesty International.
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Montsi ‘living on
borrowed time’
Dr. Mercy Montsi, in her mid-fifties,
has already outlived the average woman from Botswana. “I’m living
on borrowed time,” Montsi told an audience of central Illinois
social workers and the UIS community on March 23. Montsi’s traveled
to UIS to share the devastation the HIV/AIDS crisis has caused in
her home country.
The life expectancy for children born
today in this southern African country is less than 40 years. As
the prevalence of human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV, the virus
responsible for AIDS) infection climbs towards 40 percent
nationally, the people and government of Botswana are desperate for
solutions.
Even after the implementation of
measures recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), HIV
infection rates are expected to remain above 20 percent for at least
the next 50 years.
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