The reasons were documented by the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) which is a non-profit making non-governmental organization based in France in a document released during the third African Conference on death penalty held in Ivory Coast between April 8 and April 9, this year.
Abidjan. Rights groups advocating abolition of death penalty have outlined ten reasons describing why the sentence should be abolished.
The reasons were documented by the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) which is a non-profit making non-governmental organization based in France in a document released during the third African Conference on death penalty held in Ivory Coast between April 8 and April 9, this year.
Titled: why does death penalty is not protecting you, ECPM says capital punishment violates the right to life, it was cruel, the sentence was inhuman and degrading, the punishment killed innocent people, it is discriminatory and it was used as a political repression tool.
According to ECPM, capital punishment wasn’t a warning, rather it increases the insecurity of the society, applied not only to people who have committed crimes other than violent crime and that it targeted the poor, the illiterate and people who are unable to defend themselves.
Furthermore, the NGO established that the punishment created new victims and that it denied an individual with rehabilitation ability.
According to the document, stakeholders said death penalty violated rights to life stipulated by Article three of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that, everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person and that life wasn’t something people could earn.
Furthermore, ECPM argues in the document that punishment ruling out the people’s hope was in reality torture and that those sentenced to death lived in constant fear of being killed.
The document says in a number of countries such people were isolated throughout their life and they were living in conditions of extreme deprivation and torture.
“For instance, in 2016, the execution date for, Mr Tommy Arthur, who was sentenced to death in Alabama was postponed at the last minute for the seventh time in 15 years,” reads the document in part, adding
“Therefore, Mr Arthur spent his last night on earth for seven times. He said goodbye to his family seven times and experienced terror of his imminent execution for seven times, justifying that capital punishment was an act of cruel, inhuman and degrading.”
According to the ECPM, death penalty applied differently among suspects depending on the level of corruption among law enforcement organs and the country’s judicial systems and the whims of investigations.
The document cited 156 people sentenced to death in the United States since 1976, noting that the judgement on 56 per cent people based on false statement of the witnesses, while 36 per cent others based on false eye witnesses and that the behavior of investigation was to blame at 46 per cent.
The ECPM document questioned that the number of people who were not exonerated in time, in the United States and the rest of the world remained a question to be answered by the society during its abolition movement.
The document suggested that death penalty was used against people belonging to stigmatized minority in particular immigrants, homosexuals, ethnicity, religious groups and people with mental illness, strongly proving that the judgement was always discriminatory.
The ECPM document said capital punishment was used by most countries as a political and religious repression tool that could fell on political rivals and people going against imposed restrictions such as demonstration and criticisms on the government policies.
“Mr Ahmed Haou, who spent 15 years on death row in Morocco, was sentenced for protesting against King Hassan II regime by writing a slogan in a wall. Since independence, 54 people have been executed in Morocco over political reasons,” reads the document.
Furthermore, the document says when a State rules out that life isn’t sacred, the message is spread among inhabitants and that violence leads to violence.
The ECPM says at the end countries using death penalty have been ranked higher in crime rates as compared their abolitionist counterparts, citing Texas in the US as a living example.
The Global Peace Index (GPI), according to the document shows that only two retention countries (Japan and Singapore) appeared in the list of the world’s safest countries, indicating that punishment wasn’t guaranteeing safety.
It was noted that death penalty wasn’t issued for violent crime because things considered crime in some countries were even not offenses in other countries.
The advocacy NGO referred to the 2006 death sentence issued to Iranian citizen, Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani over adultery, before the extensive international mobilization prompted for her release in 2014.
The document further says instead of relieving the suffering of the first crime victim, capital punishments extended the sufferings and trauma to families of the prisoners sentenced to death.
“I had to explain to my grandchildren that their mother had been sentenced to death. The oldest is 14. He is finding school difficult because his classmates have been mocking him. His work is going downhill, he is destroyed, he is suffering,” Ms Celia Veloso, mother of Marie-Jane Veloso sentenced to death in Indonesia had told the NGO.
Give a dog a bad name and hang it ECPM believes that death penalty wasn’t issued to protect the society from repeat offender monsters who raped the children.
Rather death row was mainly faced people whose lives were worthless in the eyes of the judges because of their poverty because of discrimination and political reasons.
In reality, capital punishment is a tool of coercion used by people in power who mistrust those for whom they are responsible.
Therefore, opposing death penalty means saying no to State murder, no to torture. It means retaining humanity and dignity in the face of barbarity.
Finally, it means preserving the foundation of our liberty and democracy: refusing to give States the right to kill those they were looking after.
Global trend
At least 20,000 people were languishing on death row and more than 1,600 were executed in 2015.
These figures excluded death sentences in North Korea and China where sufficient information was unavailable. However, it is estimated that 5,000 people were executed annually in the People’s Republic of China alone.
The situation in Tanzania
The Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2017 released by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) on April 25, this year dubbed; Unknown assailants, a threat to human rights, called for President John Magufuli’s abolishment of the capital sentence in the country.
LHRC says execution of death penalty was a cruel and inhuman practice that constitutes torture and violations of fundamental rights to life. “LHRC commends President Magufuli for not executing the penalty to death row inmates and to the recent granting of presidential amnesty to 61 of them,” reads parts of the report.
A media survey establishes however that the sentence was still issued in the country’s judicial system, noting that at least 15 people were handed capital punishment between May and September, 2017.
Furthermore, LHRC says by June 2017, Tanzania had 465 death row inmates; 445 male and 20 female.
