DEATH PENALTY IS VERY MUCH ALIVE: THE DEATH PENALTY IS BEING HANDED DOWN IN COURTS IN COUNTRIES ACROSS THE E, ON A DAILY BASIS.

death penalty is very much alive, the death penalty is being handed down in courts in countries across the world, on a daily basis, 

death penalty is not only a state-controlled punishment but is also practised by terrorists and.

The death penalty is still very much alive

Despite the repeated intervention of international organisations, the death penalty is being handed down in courts in countries across the world, on a daily basis. 

Having faced the death sentence on several occasions, Tintin has direct experience of this dreadful punishment.

 Let us take a look at the origins, history and modern-day use of this brutal punitive measure.

Brought back into use in the United States in 1977, today capital punishment is common

in the year 2007 alone, some 1252 executions were recorded in 24 countries, and at least 3347 people were condemned to death in 51 countries.

 This figure is likely to be inaccurate as it does not take into account the many executions which take place outside of the public eye. 

The whole world seems to be implicated: the death penalty is not only a state-controlled punishment but is also practised by terrorists. 

Sometimes these executions are highly publicised such as the televised 'death sentence' (murder) of journalist Daniel Pearl by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, on 1 February 2002. 

Such spectacles highlight the general public's morbid fascination with death: the video of Daniel Pearl's murder was one of the most watched videos on the internet.

For thousands of years, heads of states and tribes have demonstrated their strength by exercising their power of life and death over others.

Appealing to the base instincts of their subjects, historical rulers offered spectacles not far removed from the deadly gladiatorial battles that took place in the Roman arenas. 

Such events made people who might not share the opinions of powerful rulers think twice about making a fuss: the more horrible the method of execution, the more convincing a deterrent it made against attempting to upset the apple cart.

 If a gruesome display was necessary, then so be it! Before the French Revolution, murderers were hanged unless they were of noble background, in which case they were decapitated by an axe or a sword.

 In fact it was not necessary to commit any crime in order to be slaughtered in this way: it was enough to displease the king. It was for this reason that several of Henry VIII's wives and concubines went to the chopping block. 

Thousands have been burned to death at the stake, their only crimes being to oppose the Church (both Catholic and Protestant).

 It was all too easy to denounce anyone who tried to introduce new ideas as a 'heretic', and to have them killed.

The gruesome method of hanging, drawing and quartering also had its time. 

King Edward I of England executed the famous leader of the resistance during the Wars of Scottish Independence, William Wallace, in this manner. 

The condemned man was hanged for some time, although not enough time to kill him. His genitals were then cut off, and his body cut open. 

The executioner then removed his intestines with a pulley and burned them, before beheading him and cutting him into four parts. 

Wallace's head was stuck on a pole on London Bridge, and his limbs were sent to four different parts of the country as warnings.

 In the Middle Ages, counterfeiters were plunged into boiling oil. In England, Henry VIII made boiling a legal form of capital punishment, used to execute poisoners.

 It was specifically used in the case of John Roose, a cook for the Bishop of Rochester, who poisoned several people. Under King Louis XIV and King Louis XV, French judges condemned highwaymen to be 'broken on the wheel'. 

The prisoner was tied to a large wooden wagon wheel, with arms and legs spread-eagled. The executioner then smashed their limbs and bodies with cudgels. 

Execution by elephant was a common capital punishment for thousands of years in South and Southeast Asia, particularly India.

 Elephants were controlled by a rider and could be trained either to torture their victims slowly with spikes attached to their tusks, or to kill them immediately, often by crushing their heads.

 In China, slow slicing, or Ling Chi, was used as a way to execute people. 

'The death by a thousand cuts' was carried out with the aid of a knife; small portions of the condemned were removed bit by bit.

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