Please join the campaign, sign and copy this letter to stop the execution of Kendrick Simpson (number 18 of 25 to be executed in Okahoma USA - August 2022)

Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp... (Belgium) 

June 2022

Office of Governor J. Kevin Stitt

2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Suite 212, Oklahoma City, OK 73105

governor@gov.ok.gov.

Dear Governor ,  Dear Honorable Members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles,

Kendrick Simpson will be killed by the state of Oklahoma if nobody wants to give him clemency.

Why am I asking you for clemency although I do know this is not an easy decision to take?  

I am very much aware of the fact that the crimes he was guilty of, can never be undone.  Already in his first contact  Kendrick  admitted that his victims,  their family and friends were with him every moment of his hours  on Death Row. 

 In my country death penalty never results in execution. Every one should be aware that this  punishment will never bring back the victims nor  soothe the pain of their families and friends but punishes all the people who love the one who is been executed.

No, Kendrick is not innocent for the crime he got a death sentence. But completely guilty he is not. Kendrick is «guilty» of being  Afro American and not having a quiet and loving education,  guilty of having lived among gangs in the poorer side of New Orleans, guilty of having taken drugs and joining «wrong» friends. He lived among violence and was shot at. This left him with a fear and even paranoia in presence of other people. For him guns were the only possible protection.

He became a Katrina- refugee and in the unknown Oklahoma, hell comes again one night. For some words too much, a ready weapon , a wrong color of cap (the victims were member of the CRIP-gang) result in two dead people.  At the time of his arrest no one asked to make a blood test to see how intoxicated he was although the judge agreed that he was very intoxicated. No psychological test either on Kendrick who was suffering of paranoia and non treated PTSD. Tests were deemed unnecessarry   as everyone accepted the testimony of the two co-accused who made up a whole story to save their own life.  

Why  I  don’t  think  it is fair to murder him?

I know that in the United States and in particular in Oklahoma bills have been signed to protect life of the unborn child. Why is a  murder by the State  still accepted? Is life of this human being not “holy”?

 I beg for clemency for  the man who  is certainly not the worst of the worst. While  all those years in solitary  Kendrick Simpson  is not the same man anymore. He not only reads a lot of philosophy works, he did an exam in psychology. I know he could mean so much for his sons, his family members, his friends, and even for other inmates.

I do appeal to you to consider granting clemency to Kendrick Simpson and to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty in view to abolish it.

I do thank you and remain 

Respectfully yours

Sincerely,