SPEAR "Who Do We Kill" campaign began this week
Claire LeeStudents for Prison Education and Reform launched the newest protest campaign,“Who Do We Kill,” onMonday.The campaign is to protest the death penalty in the United States.The campaign began with a talk by Anthony Ray Hinton, an exoneree who was on death row for 30 years.“I have been through pure hell,” Hinton said, regarding his experience as a death row inmate.He noted that no one, regardless of race or gender, should ever be on death row for a crime they never committed, and urged for the end of death sentence.“We need to put an end to the death row,” he added.Steffen Seitz ’17, co-organizer of the campaign, said that Hinton’s experience is something that few people hear about and it’s important for people to understand the torture of living under death row.SPEAR co-president Clarissa Kimmey ’16 said that the first piece of the protest would be this Wednesday, when Texas inmate Raphael Holiday is scheduled to be executed.Kimmey explained that all the students participating in the protests will wear black ribbons around their wrists.SPEAR advocacyco-chair Margaret Wright ’17 said that students can get ribbons in the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.Maxwell Grear ’18, co-organizer of the campaign, said that the goal of the campaign is to start conversation about the death penalty on campus and remind people about its continuing prevalence.Grear is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.He explained that every time a person is scheduled to be executed in the country, SPEAR will circulate information about each person and hold a protest.