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MEDIA ADVISORY FROM FLORIDIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY (FADP.org)9 April 2003 CONTACT: Abe Bonowitz: 561-371-5204 JUAN MELENDEZ TO ADDRESS COUNCIL OF EUROPE Florida Death Row Survivor Juan Melendez http://www.fadp.org/melendezspeaks.html will travel to Washington, DC this week where he will be the featured speaker at the Council of Europe event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 9am on Friday, April 11, 2003. Details on the Council of Europe event are below. Melendez will be joined by Abe Bonowitz, Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. From Washington, DC, the two will travel for speaking engagements in New Jersey, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee over the coming weeks. For further details, please contact Abe Bonowitz at 800-973-6548. BEGIN FORWARDED INFORMATION FROM THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE European parliamentarians to engage US congressmen and senators in debate over death penalty Strasbourg, 04.04.2003 - A delegation of parliamentarians from the 45-nation Council of Europe is organizing a conference with US federal and state senators and representatives, as well as abolitionist campaigners and former death row prisoners, on the issue of the death penalty in the United States. The aim of the event, from 9 to 11 April, is to exchange views, compare experience and seek to establish a trans-Atlantic dialogue on this important and sensitive question. The conference will focus on the protection from wrongful convictions, which was the leading argument for the moratorium on the death penalty introduced in several US states. The Council of Europe - which is quite separate from the 15-nation European Union - has been a "death-penalty-free zone" since 1997 and expects its observer states to share its fundamental values. The United States and Japan, the only two observer states to carry out executions, were asked by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly to institute a moratorium on executions and to improve conditions on "death row" as first steps on the path to full abolition of the death penalty, or risk having their observer status called into question. The two-part conference will take place in Springfield, Illinois (9-10 April) - one of thirteen US states to have instituted a moratorium on the death penalty - and Washington DC (11 April). In Springfield, it will be addressed by Rob Warden from the National Center on Wrongful Convictions. Juan Roberto Melendez Colon, who was exonerated from Florida's death row on grounds of innocence, will take part in the last day of the conference in Washington DC. Notes for editors The conference, which takes place in:
Room 415, and in
Room
SD-106, For the full programme of the conference and the list of participants, as well as further information on Council of Europe activities on the abolition of the death penalty, see the web site of the Parliamentary Assembly at http://assembly.coe.int/
SENT BY:
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP)
 supporting and coordinating the work of organizations and
individuals educating and energizing the general public and state legislators supporting the many persons affected by capital crime and
punishment advocating specific legislative improvements
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