World Day Against Death Penalty marked today

As the world marks the Day Against Death Penalty attention is being shifted to mental health issues related to capital punishment. 

The emphasis this year is on mental health issues related to capital punishment, with groups advocating for a ban on the execution of individuals with serious mental illness or intellectual disabilities. 

Botswana continues to stand its ground on the practice of the death penalty despite the European Union (EU) and council of Europe absolute opposition to capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances.

Today as the world stands to celebrate the ‘European and World Day against the Death Penalty’ Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe remain the only Southern-African countries still practicing the death penalty.

However the EU is still committed to its worldwide abolition of the penalty. The EU and Council of Europe urges all its member states to ratify both Protocols 6 and 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, as they are instruments which aim at the abolition of the death penalty.

Both organisations welcome the recent ratifications of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 15 December 1989 by the African Union, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

“The EU and Council of Europe call on all its Members States to support the Resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty which will be put to vote at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in December 2014,” the EU said today. 

Meanwhile according to Amnesty International more than two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The numbers are as follows: 98 have abolished it for all crimes, seven have abolished it for ordinary crimes, 35 have abolished it only in practice and those that have totally abolished it in law and practice are 140 and 58 are still holding on to the penalty.

African countries which are still practicing the penalty include; Botswana, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guyana, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe.