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Osho on What is the significance of the death penalty?

What is the significance of the death penalty?

The death penalty reveals our deep-seated barbarism; no one who cannot give life has the right to take it, and in our fallibility, we risk extinguishing the innocent.

— Osho
According to Osho, the death penalty exposes humanity’s lingering barbarism and unconsciousness: a degrading, idiotic practice that proves civilization remains unreal. It is not true punishment—no one who cannot give life has the right to take it—and its irreversibility collides with fallible courts, where innocence has no proof. Even life imprisonment is a slower, crueler death.

Killing people as punishment shows we’re still cruel and fallible, so instead of death or lifelong cages we need wiser, compassionate justice.