 |
| Carte des pays africains selon le statut de la peine de mort (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Amnesty
expresses fear about Imam Baba Leigh’s continuous detention in incommunicado and without charge, the
multinational human rights agency said in a statement last week.
The outspoken
Muslim cleric and Imam of Kanifing South Mosque was reportedly arrested on 3
December, 2012 by officers of the National Intelligence Agency. He had
criticized the Gambia Government on the killing by firing squad of nine death
row prisoners two months before his reported abduction.
The “oral
statement on working group on death penalty” was delivered at the 53rd
Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)
hosted in Banjul, The Gambia from April 9-23, 2013.
The August 2012
executions carried out in The Gambia were the first in the country in nearly
three decades.
Based on this,
Amnesty said it reclassified The Gambia, previously abolitionist in practice,
as retentionist.
Death Penalty in Africa
Ghana
Based on
government information, Amnesty gathered that 27 death sentences were imposed
in Ghana, all on men convicted of murder, 162 men and four women were under
sentence of death at the end of the end of 2012.
Kenya
Amnesty said at
least 21 new death sentences were reported to have been imposed in Kenya and
during the last year, at least eight men were sentenced to death for crimes
involving robbery and violence, but not intentional killing.
Liberia
In Liberia, it
indicated that four death sentences were handed down and no further steps were
taken to bring the country’s laws on the death penalty into compliance with
Liberia’s obligations under the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Libya
In post Gadafi
Libya, Amnesty recorded that the judiciary system resumed operations in 2012
and have since imposed at least five death sentences in November. A military
court in Benghazi sentences five former government soldiers to death in
absentia for killing and raping civilians, crimes allegedly committed during
the 2011 armed conflict.
Malawi
29 remained on
death row, but no executions have been carried out in Malawi since 1992.
Mauritania
The working
group on death penalty in Africa noted that six death sentences were imposed in
Mauritania, including three on terrorism-related charges. On 15 May, the Court
of Appeal upheld the death sentence imposed on Mohamed Abdellahi Ould Ahmednah
in March 2011.
Recommendations
Amnesty
International urges the African Commission to call on all member States of the
African Charter to abolish the death penalty and pending full abolition of the
death penalty.
“Member States
of the African Charter should immediately establish an official moratorium on
executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty, as called for by most
recently UN General Assembly resolution 67/176, adopted on 20 December 2012,”
the multinational agency said.
It added: “Member
States should commute without delay all death sentences to terms of
imprisonment, and remove all prisoners from special prison facilities,
especially death row and transferred to regular institutions of detention
appropriate for the age of the offender and the offence committed,” the
statement said.
“To immediately
remove from their law any death penalty provisions which are in breach of
international human rights, such as its mandatory imposition or for crimes
which do not meet threshold of “most serious crimes” interpreted by
international bodies as being limited to crimes involving intentional killing.
“Should ensure
that trials for crimes carrying the death penalty must be comply with the most
rigorous internationally recognized standards for fair trial, where that has
not been the case the individual must be given re-trial in proceedings which
comply with these standards, and without recourse to the death penalty.”
It further
stressed that member states must ensure that the inmates themselves, their
families and their legal representatives are provided in advance with adequate
information about a pending execution, its date, time and location, and must be
allow for a last visit or communication of the family with the convicted
person, the return of the body to the family for burial after execution or to
inform on where the body is located.
It urges member
states to take necessary steps to ensure the prompt ratification, without
reservations, of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
“They should
publicize on an annual basis comprehensive statistic on the death penalty and
facts around the administration of justice in death penalty cases, including at
a minimum the number of persons sentence to death, the number of person on
death row and the number of executions carried out in any calendar year,” the
group demands.
Only five of the 54 member states of the African Union
carried out executions in 2012. On the regional level, as on the global stage,
over 70 percent of states are abolitionist in law or practice, 37 African
States are now abolitionist in law (16) or in practice (21), and only 17 are
retentionist.
No comments:
Post a Comment
The views expressed in this section are the authors' own. It does not represent The North Bank Evening Standard (TNBES)'s editorial policy. Also, TNBES is not responsible for content on external links.