as of desperate people drowning in the mediterranean as they try to reach europe this week saw the worst tragedy of the year 150 drowned and 135 rescued the lucky ones the rescued were sent back to libya their starting point and no one's idea of a safe haven so what should we do i'm phil gale in berlin and this is the day. i don't want anything now except to go back to my country sudan to die there 300 people. from our homes there were $300.00 of us in the boat and then the water came and they were able to save around a 150 feet full and the risk of. another 150 people tragically lost their lives.

it's been with us for the past 2 days. it's like we were fighting in a seat. and now we're fighting exact on dry land. that would make this the worst tragedy on the mediterranean this year. and it's. also coming up the u.s. federal government is to breeze you executing death row prisoners for the 1st time since 2003 critics say the move is designed to boost support for president trump ahead of next year's election these cases were not chosen because they justify the federal death penalty they were chosen because they were designed to inflame the public. which

doesn't the mediterranean we once believed to be the worst shipwreck that this year nearly $150.00 refugees of fear drowned after their boat capsized off the libyan coast on thursday scores of others were rescued but instead of finding safe harbor in europe they were sent back to libya to face more uncertainty and more desperation. these exhausted migrants have been sent back to libya from where they had set off for europe right next to the survival as are those who did not make it . this woman says she lost her 7 year old son in the boat accident. she's grief stricken but also angry she says no one helped her and her family in libya. they don't know how did anyone they sent me away and they told me and my children that we had to find our own way so i just want to go back to my home country of sudan to die. after what is

probably the worst boat accident in the mediterranean this year the demands of u.n. organizations have become more insistent. urgent need now 1st of all to secure the release of people from inside the engine centers in libya but also to boost the search and rescue capacity we need more rescue boats on the mediterranean to prevent lives from being lost. at the moment there are no private rescue ships patrolling off the coast of libya it only wants to perch really prohibit their work by imposing heavy fines and they are still disagreement in the e.u. over how rescued migrants should be distributed among member states. we can talk about this further with flora vast fall whose general director of doctors without borders germany welcome to d w why is taking these poor people back to libya a problem because in all likelihood they end up in overcrowded prisons without

enough food without clean water proper hygiene and any significant medical care we visit 7 of these places have done so for many months in the region of tripoli or it's come to in addition to this is that recently we've seen a lot of fighting and some of these bases have been directly struck by an airstrike for example which left 60 of these people who were interned there dead at the beginning of the months for the european union has there would tell us that they have done deals they have they have they have the actually got money to send money to set up these places and make sure that it's all properly regulated where the reality is that what we're seeing right now in the region of tripoli most affected by. really the civil war that we're seeing in libya right now up to 4000 people who are stuck who'd have to be evacuated as quickly as possible they're stuck in places of detention sometimes right next to the areas of conflict and even worse the libyan coast guard which is risking people in the mediterranean is taking them back into exactly these same prisons which if that from your organization doctors

without borders says these deaths and suffering are preventable ok so how and who should prevent them well what we've seen in the past is that the european states were actually very active including italy in particular in terms of search and rescue activities in the mediterranean and save tens of thousands of lives but in 2019 the last actual naval assets the e.u. had in the mediterranean where withdrawn what we need now is the significant and substantial efforts by the european states bringing the ships out there bringing the crews out there and rescue people before they drown this cannot be left up to private non-governmental organizations because we cannot do that on our own and also europe needs to stop preventing us from doing so stop criminalizing humanitarian efforts to save these people so given this apparent lack of political will to deal with this problem i wonder then what you think of the efforts of the italian government to force this issue of the political agenda if not their methods

of italy is one of the countries that is saying no we will not allow these ships to land in our ports but they are as i say force and these are the political agenda or one thing is certain this is a challenge to the whole of europe this cannot be left up to the italians alone it's not just for them to deal with this humanitarian crisis we've calling on the rest of the e.u. to do so to what we object to is obviously the methods that italy has engaged in some of the european states i think gauge which have simply targeted those private organizations that actually try to save lives targeted. and tarnish their potations and directly criminalize their actions that's wrong you can call as much as you like common sense and humanity says something should be done but we reach a point where ok everybody says something has to be done europe has done its bit but by trying to sort out a common migration dispersal policy but there are there is resistance within the

block that's just politics it is just politics but the reality is also that we've had something like $500.00 people who drowned this year in the mediterranean we have thousands in past years and this happens because the political will simply isn't there to save them so whatever the politics if we have somebody in the streets of berlin who is the victim of a traffic accident we're not going to make that into a political issue in our crew she was she is whether they deserve our aid we just want to help them and this is that kind of humanitarian emergency except that the politics the politicians would also say few people are drowning now that we are discouraging the people traffickers and the people smugglers well actually the reality is different though because the push factors from libya the cat's ass trophy that libya is for these people which they have to flee from continues to push them across the mediterranean even when there's no significant search and rescue effort present as is the case right now no private search and rescue ships

allowed but as we saw in this disastrous catastrophic events recently people still trying to flee across the med. we're talking to you thank you so much for joining us flora invest fell from the doctors without borders and. the u.s. government has announced that it will be soon executions this year for the 1st time since 2003 a since 2003 there has been an unofficial moratorium on a review was carried out well the justice department now says that review is complete and that it has cleared the way for executions to resume. critics of the death penalty say the decision is politically motivated and aimed at boosting support for president trump in next year's election. the execution chamber still frequently used in the united states but in recent years the death penalty has only been applied by state governments only 3 people have been executed at

a national level in the past 3 decades now the attorney general william barr has authorized the resumption of capital punishment by the federal government so this is kind of a new. surprising announcement there's no particular call for the death penalty at any federal level but there are people on the federal death row who have committed serious homicides and juries have found that they are subject to the death penalty so. there's nothing that really prevents the attorney or from knowing this 61 people are on federal death row including the boston marathon bomber for now 5 men have been shot jewel to die by lethal injection all convicted of murdering children some see it as an emotive decision. these cases were not chosen because they justify the federal death penalty. they were chosen because they were designed to inflame the public and there's concern that

nonwhite defendants will be disproportionately affected you're more likely to be sentenced to death and you more likely be executed if you're a defendant of color. president donald trump has long been an outspoken supporter of the death penalty executions will restart in december as the u.s. prepares to enter an election year several of trump's democratic opponents are against it the issue could become part of the presidential race. joining us from washington is the wall street journal's correspondent for the u.s. supreme court jess bregman welcome to d.w. a people rights to presume that this is electioneering you know all issues that involve the government are in some way political but it's not electioneering in the sense that president trump or or bill by the attorney general are doing something that they would have done anyway because these are gentleman

who are strong proponents of capital punishment and to them like to many members of our supreme court the long delays between a sentence of death and execution is itself intolerable that's what they see in the u.s. we have a report that came out actually just earlier this week from the justice department saying that the average delay or a span between a death sentence and execution is now 20 years and 3 months so it's not a surprise that this is been in the works for some time so and it was just interesting politically folks forget i beg you to go on what is interesting to politically you are about to. is actually what's happening on the democratic side where you have many candidates leading candidates criticizing this decision and taking positions against the death for a long time this was a very toxic subject and democrats either said that they supported the death penalty or kind of danced around the topic with the assumption that there was. it was it was very difficult politically to oppose it even if perhaps they did this is

really a switch to see them criticizing it and coming out against it and their position actually may help draw out their base if if the liberal wing of the country is really becoming more passionate in supposition a couple of us we look at and with this was mentioned in the report we look at the number of black people and people of color in american presence really the number of black faces on death row based seem to be an issue that black people should be worried about. well the you know there are racial disparities in the way that capital punishment like punishment in general is applied in the united states i've read statistics that say that the principle determiner about whether a murder defendant gets a sense of death in when we're looking at a race is actually the race of the victim people who kill whites are more likely to

end up on death row than people who kill blacks and so. forth so this is you know another form of racial discrimination that perhaps is more subtle than obviously sensing blacks more than whites right now whites are there more of them are on death row than the black defendants but that's because their population is is much greater but there are obviously a lot of criticism about the death penalty because of its racial disparities and also because of the sort of freakish nature because in the united states sense capital sensing is really located in a very discrete geographical areas a few states conduct the vast majority of executions united states people who commit similar crimes elsewhere in the country would not get such a severe penalty and the point that was also picked up in the report these are 5 cases rather than though the whole of the 62 with that seems an odd thing we're going to execute these 5 of this big huge number that is way that are waiting to

die. well as we reported yesterday the attorney general personally selected which cases to go with now there are certain parameters he has all the appeals have to be finished before he can sense an execution so that's one but it's quite clear that he even said we're that he'd look for ones where the victims were very sympathetic very vulnerable children in particular and so these were blameworthy individuals however the government's desire to resume executions in december doesn't mean that's going to happen because these men have lawyers and there is a very vigorous defense establishment that will seek to find flaws in their sentencing and will look for arguments that might persuade a court to stay or delay these these executions but it does seem extraordinary looking at this from the outside 60 people waiting on death row vs any general says

you you you you and you what about the rest of them or. well to look more broadly you know the united states being a federal system it has 50 other a court systems and the number of people on death row across the country the vast majority are on state death rows and there are more than 2700 people who have been sentenced to death who are living in prison right now in the united states and last year about 20 i think 23 people were put to death so there isn't this kind of almost random or arbitrary quality about who gets selected the federal death row as you say it has about 60 people on it that's much much smaller than say california which has more than 700 people on death row right now why did he pick means we're told he picked the ones we thought were more. more blameworthy you could house should you do it should you do it in order of how long you've been waiting. for for execution. we don't we don't really know did they choose ones because they thought

there was less chance that they might have specific successful appeals you know that's not very very clear to us one thing that is certain though is that the governor has been thinking about the availability of lethal injection drugs that's how it puts people to death the fact that the european union has for hated the export of drugs that can be used in executions in the united states has affected the pace of executions here they took some steps to try to ease the way to bring lethal injection drugs into the united states by issuing a ruling earlier this year that the federal food and drug administration could not review drugs used in executions saying they're not really intended to promote health so the the f.d.a. as it's known shouldn't be doing it why did he pick those 5 were told he thought they were really really committed really really horrible crimes. opponents are

definitely say that it's an arbitrary type of decision not just for these 5 men but for the infliction of this punishment altogether so how is this likely to play with democratic voters that. well you know i think i don't think it will bring people to trump's side who weren't already there i mean he has the most conservative voters in the country behind him and they believe in the death penalty strongly and it may energize them it may help distinguish him from democrats but there are many many things already that distinguish president from from from democrats and if he manages to preside over the execution of one or 2 or 5. convicted killers from from death row i don't think that really will move the scales very much in his favor it may move them slightly against him if the democratic nominee finds that constituency younger constituency is opposed to capital punishment some states that voted for trump in the last election don't have

capital punishment have abolished it those include states such as iowa michigan pennsylvania has it on the books but the governor there has suspended it indefinitely so busy i think it is another way to point out the difference between where trump stands in the direction he wants to go and the more progressive direction that the democrats hope to take the country well we thank you for joining us i just brave and from the wall street journal you've been. here in germany the government is moving to back a controversial practice of so-called gay conversion therapy health minister yet sean is calling for it to be abolished saying that homosexuality is not a disease and warned of dire consequences for people who carry out the practice t.w. has mass amount who says this therapy left him isolated depressed and was suicidal thoughts. i think i 1st became aware that something was different during

kindergarten but of course i didn't know what it meant mike is just one of thousands of people in germany who have undergone a controversial therapy in an attempt to repress their homosexuality christianity shaped mike's life from an early age but as puberty hit he began to have sexual experiences with men. it was a nice time in life but then the conflict started to grow because at the same time i felt at home in christian circles where it was made very clear god doesn't want that you should lead another life. how can you stand before god this is a mortal sin. and other similar comments came from all sides. after voluntarily seeking out so-called conversion therapy might committed himself to ending all contact with homosexual friends and partners for a decade he was abstinent the loneliness brought him to the brink of suicide

unemployment i reached the point where i couldn't go on anymore. but it was also because of my faith that i was too much of a coward to do it. because then i went had been granted eternal life today i can laugh about it how stupid that it was but i was actually the reason that kept me from ending my life. not practitioners in germany of the so-called homosexual conversion therapy currently face no consequences but german health minister is preparing to take drastic action. should conversion therapy in germany sexuality is not a disease and does not require treatment. the german health minister hopes to present a draft law by the end of the year but like many other critics mike worries that the so-called therapy will be able to continue under a different guise but for him it's still a step in the right direction. she got and i think it's important for example to

put a ban in place especially for young people which makes it clear that doctors and therapists are not allowed to carry out this so-called conversion therapy and then they'll be a lot less of this nonsense. 20 years on since his so-called therapy mike can now look forward to his wedding putting the past behind him. nieman i'm not bitter towards anyone neither the christian circles where i learned and heard everything nor the therapist but someone from my former parish actually reached out to me and said hats off to him and he was sorry for what happened so i can see something is happening changes on the way. i've read he's director of the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender rights program on human rights watch he joins us from new york welcome to d.w. are there many jurisdictions where these conversions so-called service are still

legal. conversion therapy is quite the base of it can take place in medical savings but also religious stating its. variants jurisdictions have taken steps to combat it sometimes it is stable for example in the us all countries such as malta that have introduced national bans also made equal in psychiatric authorities have regulated the practice because it's recognised by all refutable medical authorities worldwide that this is both in the thick to and harmful and particularly for young people who are often subject to conversion therapy but sometimes devastating results but he thinks we will get to the religion's an aside but it's just seems to me all in this day and age you have actual medical saurus his sanctioning this sort of behavior.

clearly be the professional body should be both regulating and sanctioning this kind of practice which has been shown to be as i say both ineffective and harmful the world health organization has removed it from the list of disorders they back in 9092 that has been throughout the world from psychiatric association's in lebanon in philippines in south africa india and yet. this practice does continue. in parts of the world and we heard in the report that mike talking about how he's christiana said he played a big pot in this do you often see this this conflation bridgeway and sexuality and religion. well and depending on the whole ethos of conversion there

is discrimination prejudice and stigma and sometimes that takes a religious form where there are religious communities that big for example that and the sexuality is wrong and so sometimes coerce particularly young people to undergo so-called conversion therapy all adults who are religious believers and who feel that have a sick show it is wrong might seek out some kind of treatment to change their sick shit i mean what do they actually do in the states center. well conversion therapy is a very broad term it's a damn relit and it's. a treatment such as electro shock therapy medication that introduces nausea talk therapy and then in religious communities it might consist of. or need to it's all more coercive practices the to kill it the aimed at young people to live with

a view that thank you for joining us graham reed. human rights watch thank you very much. well the days almost done but the conversation continues online you can find us on twitter d w news or you can follow me phil go don't forget to use a hash tag but. that's it you know up to date of a good day. we

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