Lees over Beunka Adams in het Nederlands.

In case you were wondering why a Dutch girl would create a website for a man on death row, let me tell you why. The short answer is: because I promised. The more detailed answer can be read below:

I’ve been a member of Amnesty International for several years now. As a teenager I used to write letters to governments about political prisoners, but copying a pre-written letter felt impersonal and I was left with the feeling I was trying to move mountains with a tooth pick. Therefore I decided to start writing to people on death row I came in contact with through Inside-Outside, a Dutch organisation helping USA prisoners on death row find pen-pals in the Netherlands.

Although I can understand the sentiment to rid the world criminals, I am against capital punishment. First of all it is human to err and the chance of condemning an innocent person for something they did not do is possible. It happens and if you’re not careful you end up with a dead innocent person.

Secondly I’m not that naïve to believe the world knows no criminals. Someone I considered a friend turned out to be a child-raping paedophile and I don’t think he got what he deserved, but that’s the Dutch justice system. Nevertheless capital punishment is too severe in my opinion and killing because killing is wrong does not make sense.

Last, but not least, criminals are punished in the name of justice. This sense of justice seems to have abandoned the scene of capital punishment. Even in the USA people who committed murder as a minor are put on death row, those without money cannot afford decent legal aid which almost immediately condemns them, and prisoners spend years and years on death row sometimes getting their execution postponed several times. People on death row go through years of isolation and uncertainty. This is when justice becomes torture.

I started to write people on death row in the USA, because I want to mean something to people going through harsh times despite of what they did. Nobody deserves to be killed. For that reason I promised Beunka to aid him with his struggle to get the decent legal aid he has not been able to obtain so far. Beunka and I are of the same age and we are not that different. Still I got opportunities he never got and I’m enjoying a life of freedom he does not have. I cannot change the world or the countries in it on my own, but I can make a difference for one person, showing that there are still people who care.

This is why I made this web page for Beunka.

You can learn more about me if you visit my website: Microwaved Coffee.