A Saudi woman has been executed for practising “witchcraft and sorcery”, the country’s interior ministry says.

Amnesty International says the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion.

Hundreds of protesters will gather worldwide Saturday to rally against the imprisonment and possible execution of an Iranian woman convicted of adultery.

The case of Sakineh Mohammedie Ashtiani has drawn international attention. She was convicted of adultery in 2006 and faces the possibility of execution.

Ashtiani was originally sentenced to death by stoning, but it was put on hold earlier this month after an international outcry. Despite the sentencing delay, human rights activists want to remind the world of Ashtiani’s plight, said Mina Ahadi, chairman of the International Committee Against Execution and Stoning, one of the groups leading Saturday’s protests.

“The fact is, the execution can still happen,” Ahadi said. “And, often times in Iran, these types of executions will happen without any notice.”

Earlier this month, Ashtiani’s lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, told CNN that she confessed to the crime after being subjected to 99 lashes.

She later recanted the confession and has denied wrongdoing, he said.

Most civilized countries view the death penalty as a barbaric practice and a violation of human right.

Wild West ‘ethics’ persist: Californians maintain their solid support for the death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes, but are divided on whether they would impose a death sentence or life without parole for first-degree murder, according to a Field Poll being released today.

The survey of registered voters found 70 percent backing for capital punishment, up from 67 percent in the last statewide poll in 2006. Substantial majorities supported it, regardless of age, gender, race, religion or party. Twenty-four percent opposed the death penalty and 6 percent had no opinion.

But when a smaller number of voters were asked which sentence they preferred for a first-degree murderer, 42 percent said life in prison without parole and 41 percent said death. Another 13 percent said it would depend on the circumstances, and 4 percent had no opinion.

The last time the Field Poll asked that question, in 2000, it found that 44 percent chose the death penalty and 37 percent favored life without parole.

“If there’s anyone that should die of the death penalty, it would be Michael Ryan,” Kelle said, “but I don’t feel that we have the right to say who should live or die.”

Nearly 15 years ago, the brutal murder of three Arkansas Cub Scouts in an alleged satanic rite sickened a nation and strengthened the hand of death penalty champions across the United States. Now the same ghastly crime may be the final nail in the coffin of capital punishment in an America that is manifesting a crisis of conscience over the morality of executions.

New Jersey joins the civilized world: The New Jersey General Assembly approved a bill eliminating capital punishment on Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Jon S. Corzine to sign the measure as early as Monday.

Since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States three decades ago, 124 people awaiting execution have been exonerated. For some prisoners, the appeals process provided time to prove their innocence. Now a move by the government to speed up appeals has alarmed death penalty opponents, and even some supporters, who worry that innocent people could be put to death.

Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state’s conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.

How to reconcile the needs of a society given to vengeance but outwardly abhorrent of cruelty or violence, trusting of medical science’s trappings but indifferent to their use in killing, expecting the highest ethics of its physicians but willing to medicalize the execution chamber?

Research reveals some people executed by lethal injection in the US regain consciousness while they are dying.

Questions about justice, expense undermining political support for capital punishment.

Italy will campaign at the United Nations for a global ban on the death penalty, Prime Minister Romano Prodi has said.

Texas, where more inmates were executed last year but fewer people were actually sentenced to die, is in the spotlight as lawmakers, judges, even community leaders in Italy are calling for change to the state’s ultimate punishment.

The state Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Thursday of a Bakersfield man for a 1994 rape-murder, saying jury deliberations were not tainted by biblical passages circulated by a juror, including one that called for delivery of fornicators unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - For many years, few questioned whether Carlos De Luna deserved to die.