Battle for the Future of India      South Korea's Death Penalty:
Forgotten, But Not Gone  South Korea is, to my knowledge, the
only place in the world where a former death row inmate went on
to become President of the country (and to win the Nobel Peace
Prize too). Kim Dae-jung was one of many political prisoners
sentenced to death in South Korea in the 1980s. Amnesty
International has issued a powerful short film about that era
and the people who survived it. Interviews with the former
President, and other former political prisoners, are
interspersed with interviews with the man who served as Kim Dae-
jung’s jailer.  South Korea has come a long way since the 1980s,
and capital punishment, while still on the books, is no longer
really used.  There have been no executions in more than 10
years.  Nonetheless, South Korea’s Constitutional Court recently
ruled that the death penalty was still constitutional, though
just barely.  The vote was 5-4.  Many countries that have moved
to abolish the death penalty have do