Africa must reject the death penalty

What you need to know:

  • Amnesty International report indicates that at least some 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries.
  • Excluding China, which executed more people than the rest of the world combined, some 87 per cent of all the executions took place in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa has stood out as a beacon of hope and positive progress on the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.
  • Guinea introduced a new Criminal Code, which removed the death penalty from the statute books as an applicable punishment for ordinary crimes.

On April 11, Amnesty International published its report on the global use of the death penalty for last year.

The report indicates that at least some 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries.

Excluding China, which executed more people than the rest of the world combined, some 87 per cent of all the executions took place in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan.

In recent years, sub-Saharan Africa has stood out as a beacon of hope and positive progress on the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.

However, last year saw a mix of some good and bad news. The good news is that there has been a significant reduction in the number of executions carried out in the entire region.

EXECUTIONS REDUCED

The number of recorded executions went down by 49 per cent, with 22 executions recorded last year compared to 43 the previous year.

In addition, two countries in the region abolished the death penalty.

In January last year, the Constitutional Court of the West African nation of Benin ruled that in order to comply with the country’s international human rights obligations, all laws providing for the death penalty were void and death sentences could no longer be imposed.

The landmark decision effectively abolished the death penalty. Later in the year, Guinea introduced a new Criminal Code, which removed the death penalty from the statute books as an applicable punishment for ordinary crimes.

While Guinea’s Military Code still provides for the death penalty for some exceptional crimes, a Bill to remove all the death penalty provisions from the Military Code is pending in that country’s National Assembly.

POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS

These positive developments in Benin and Guinea followed the trend from 2015, when Madagascar and the Republic of Congo consigned the death penalty to history.

The pace of abolition of the penalty in sub-Saharan Africa has been steady and promising.

In 1977, when Amnesty International started campaigning and advocating for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty no country in sub-Saharan Africa had abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

Today, some 19 have done so.

There was also good news for hundreds of people who had been condemned to death and were reprieved last year when their death sentences were commuted in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania, and Sudan.

The commutations in Kenya were particularly remarkable. President Uhuru Kenyatta commuted the death sentences of 2,747 prisoners – the entire death row population in Kenya at the time.

REMOVED DEATH PENALTY

Indeed, despite not having removed the death penalty, it is instructive to note that Kenya has not carried out executions in 30 years and this move further steers it away from the death penalty.

On the other hand, two countries that had not carried out executions since 2013 resumed. Botswana executed one person last year; and in December three people were suddenly executed in Edo State of Nigeria.

A very worrying trend in sub-Saharan Africa last year was the sharp increase in the number of death sentences handed down despite the fact that the number of countries where death sentences were imposed by the courts fell from 21 in 2015 to 17 last year.

There was a staggering 145 per cent increase in the number of death sentences imposed across the region.

RIGHT TO LIFE

Some 1,086 death sentences were confirmed last year compared to 443 in 2015. This sharp increase was largely due to a massive surge in Nigeria, where the courts imposed a total of 527 death sentences, the highest in the whole of Africa.

This high number of death sentences in Nigeria raises serious concern about the real possibility of executing some innocent people, as unsafe convictions are common.

In fact, it is worth noting that the courts exonerated 32 wrongly convicted people last year alone.

The death penalty is a violation of the right to life; it is the ultimate cruel and inhuman punishment that has no place in the modern era.

The majority of the countries in the world, a total of 104, have accepted this fact by completely doing away with the death penalty for all crimes.

It is, therefore, time for the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are yet to do so, to seriously consider joining them.

There is no reason why, in the foreseeable future, the region could not be completely free of the death penalty.

Mr Popoola, Amnesty International’s advocate/adviser on the death penalty. [email protected], Twitter: @olutopopoola