Some 300 protest rallies were held worldwide Friday ahead of a last-ditch parole board hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis, whose planned execution sparked an international movement.
Davis is set to be executed September 21 for the 1989 shooting death of a police officer in Savannah, Georgia, but his supporters say there is strong evidence supporting his claim of innocence.
On Thursday, petitions with 663,000 names were handed to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles urging clemency. The board convenes Monday to consider the case.
Laura Moye, the Death Penalty Abolition campaign director for Amnesty International USA, said a march was planned in downtown Atlanta at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT), followed by a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual center of the civil rights movement in the 1960s under Martin Luther King.
She said rallies for Davis started earlier in Hong Kong and carried on throughout the day in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Another 10 events were held in France on behalf of Davis, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection next week at a prison in Jackson, Georgia, south of Atlanta.
The parole board is made up of five members and it takes a simple majority to decide a case.
“We hope the message they hear is that there is too much doubt in this case,” Moye said. “Can we even rely on the conviction of Troy Davis? Can we be sure we are not going to execute someone who is innocent?”
Oppose the execution of Troy Davis through Amnesty International USA.
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