Group to Protest Death Penalty

In the wake of the call by Massachusetts state legislators for the restoration of the death penalty, Amnesty International will host hundreds of student leaders from around the country in its first national student conference on the death penalty today in the EII Center at Northeastern University.

The students will participate in workshops and panels led by such internationally renowned authorities on the death penalty as Nomgcobo Sangweni, a former South African political prisoner who is the recipient of a United Nations Scholarship, and Shabaka Sundiati Waqlimi, who was found innocent after having spent thirteen years on death row in Florida on the charges of murder and rape.

"It has been proven time and time again that there is no connection between crime and the death penalty. It is not a deterrent," said Susan Rich, the program director of Amnesty International, an organization of human rights activists. The group opposes the death penalty on the grounds that it violates the "basic human right to life, liberty, and the security of person as guaranteed by international law."

A group of Harvard students, led by Harvard's Amnesty International chapter, will be among the predicted 400 to 600 conference members.

Harvard to Study Global Warming

Harvard will hold several forums on the greenhouse effect as part of a national education effort, titled "The Heat Is On," scheduled for the coming week by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Three-hundred communities, universities, high schools and elementary schools across the country will be holding panel discussions and lectures on global-warming from November 6 to 12, said Kim E. Stone, public education assistant for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a lobbying and educational group based in Cambridge.

"Mainly what we're trying to do is to get people to talk about global warming and the green house effect," Stone said. She said the discussions would be geared to people's previous understanding of the problem, with some groups talking more generally and others working on specific policy options.

"A lot of programs will reach out to both community and campus people," she added.

Greenhouse effect education week at Harvard will start off with a talk by State Representative Lawrence R. Alexander, an active sponsor of environmental protection legislation. Other lecturers will include Professor Michael B. McElroy, chair of the Deparment of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and William C. Clark, an environmental policy expert.

Members of the Harvard community have become increasingly aware of environmental issues over the past two years, said Anita L. Meiklejohn, a Harvard graduate student and organizer of the University program.

"The amount of activism concerning environmental issues and global warming is at a much higher level than it has been in several years," Meiklejohn said.

But the Harvard events are designed to go beyond basic appreciation of the seriousness of global warming and to encourage people to become energy-conscious in their everyday life, Meiklejohn said.