By
Rebecca Missel
Arizona Daily Wildcat
A dozen students gathered on the UA Mall last night
Soft voices singing "We shall overcome someday" floated over the UA Mall last night as students held small white candles and spoke out against the death penalty.
About 12 University of Arizona students, faculty and local activists attended the event sponsored by the Students Against Death Penalty. Other campus activist groups, including Students Against Sweatshops and Amnesty International, also joined the demonstration.
"This is a way to get student voices heard," said Ahmad Saad Nasim, Webmaster for Students Against Death Penalty. "We want to educate people about the inhumanity of the death penalty."
On Sunday in Austin, Texas, about 400 to 600 people marched to demand a moratorium on the death penalty. Jane Williams, Students Against Death Penalty president, said last night's gathering was a direct response to the march.
"We want a moratorium on the death penalty or, eventually, an abolition," said Williams, a German studies and linguistics senior.
Currently, 921 inmates are on Arizona's death row and about 3,600 people in the United States.
"Events like this allow people to unify," said Anjali Bhasin, creative writing senior and Amnesty International member. "It raises awareness, opens dialogue and is rejuvenating for the activists."
Other students said attending vigils and demonstrations helps them to feel less alienated for their opinions.
"It lets you know that you are not alone in the feeling that the death penalty is wrong," said Angie Battershell, plant biology junior and Amnesty International member.
While the focus of the vigil was on the death penalty, many participants were also involved from other human rights groups, said Andrew Silverman, a law professor who is the club's faculty adviser.
"Both Students Against Death Penalty and Students Against Sweatshops deal with oppressed people who are many times forgotten," he said. "They are social justice issues of our time."
Despite the small number of people present at the vigil, Silverman said that plenty of students care about the plight of workers and the victims of the death penalty.
"There is always activism," he said. "Students need places to put their energy, creativism, values and heart."
Some proponents of the death penalty argue that execution offers a sense of closure for the families of those victimized in capital cases, but activists disagree.
"Victims' families don't feel better after the execution," Battershell said. "They just have the loss of another life."
In Europe there is no death penalty, and yet the crime rate is relatively low there, said Nasim, a management and information systems senior. He then discussed an execution he witnessed of a man in Saudi Arabia.
"I can still see his eyes after he was beheaded," Nasim said. "Even if these people are serial killers, how can we do that to them? It is still killing a person, and criminals are human beings, too."
