Europeans Incensed Over Execution of Troy Davis

By Linn Washington, Jr.

London -– Hearing hard-core Republicans applaud the use of the death penalty during a recent televised forum for GOP presidential candidates incensed Sara Callaway, an African-American living in London for the past 25-years.

“It was like a declaration of war against all of us committed to justice,” said Callaway, one of over two hundred people who gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in London’s upscale Mayfair section for a silent, candle-lit vigil protesting the execution of U.S. death row inmate Troy Davis.

That London vigil beginning hours before Davis’ execution in Georgia was among many held in cities across Europe. Georgia officials executed Davis by lethal injection ignoring not hust the hundreds of thousands of appeals from Americans (and the overwhelming evidence that his trial had been a fraud and a lynching), but worldwide protests against that action.

European, American and supporters across the globe opposed the death of Davis, whose conviction stood on evidence now severely compromised by eyewitness recantations, improprieties by authorities and identification of a suspect--one of the witnesses for the prosecution -- who one juror in the case alleges she heard admit to killing the off-duty policeman whose murder sent Davis to death row.

A vigil for Davis in front of the U.S. Embassy in the German capital of Berlin, in contrast to the quiet presence in London, contained loud shouts and speeches from some political leaders, as reported by Victor Grossman, an American born, Harvard educated writer living in Germany for over fifty-years.

Participants at the London vigil lit a long row of glass-dished candles placed on the ground across from the U.S. Embassy. Some participants held candles and signs with messages like: “USA! Shame on You!” and “Troy Innocent – Georgia Guilty!”...

For the rest of this article from London by LINN WASHINGTON, JR. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent alternative online newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/773