Speaking at a Kremlin ceremony honoring young artists and educators, the Russian president addressed last Friday's terrorist attack at the Moscow concert venue, in which over 130 people died and scores more were seriously injured.
"It is extremely important for us now, when we're dealing with what happened last Friday, to rely on these values of creativity, humanism and mercy," Putin said. "They unite us in supporting all victims, in our determination to stay strong and together."Artists and educators have a special role in preserving and promoting those values, by influencing the mood of the public and shaping the future of the nation, the Russian president added.
Putin's remarks have been widely interpreted as a signal to lawmakers and the public to tone down the calls for administering the death penalty to the suspects caught trying to flee into Ukraine after the Crocus City bloodbath.
State Duma deputy Sergey Mironov has proposed organizing a referendum on reinstating capital punishment. He also called for imposing a visa regime for Central Asian countries, as most of the suspected terrorists came from Tajikistan. Mironov leads the party "A Just Russia - For Truth," which has 28 seats in the 450-member legislature. His capital punishment proposal was backed by Liberal Democrat (LDPR) leader Leonid Slutsky.
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin rejected the referendum idea, however, arguing that reinstating the death penalty was a simple matter for the Constitutional Court.
"In our Constitution and in criminal legislation, no one has abolished the death penalty," Volodin said on Tuesday. "There is only a decision of the Constitutional Court, which postponed the imposition of such a sentence, so no referendums are needed," he added.
The court suspended the death penalty in 1999, arguing that it was unfair without a jury trial and that not all regions of the country had those. A deputy from the ruling United Russia party, Mikhail Sheremet, announced on Tuesday that he would petition the court anew about the issue.
Judge Valery Zorkin, who chairs the Constitutional Court, has argued that the constitutionally guaranteed right to life means "the right not to be sentenced to death," so reinstating capital punishment would require changing the constitution itself.
Comment: President Putin again shows that he is magnitudes of order above other leaders and that he has a strong spiritual connection. Despite the horrific crimes which were committed, executing the patsies does little to root out the evil by whose order the massacre was committed. The move is unexpected and will undoubtedly unsettle the West as such a move not only is in stark contrast to the picture of Putin as a dictator, which they have propagated far and wide. It also shows the real values which Russia is fighting for and which is polar opposites to the values of the Western leadership no matter how hard the West repeats their tired slogans of "freedom and democracy."
One leader from the past who showed mercy and humanity even to those who tried to kill him was Julius Caesar, from whom perhaps the origins of Christianity started. Laura Knight-Jadczyk wrote a book which pierces through the veil of early Christianity and towards the end shows some of the many elements which alludes to Caesar being one of the actors which inspired early Christianity. Read her book "From Paul to Mark".
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