Amnesty on Africa: Moving towards abolition of the death penalty

[Quetzal]

Moving towards abolition of the death penalty

As government officials and civil society representatives meet in Entebbe, Uganda, on 10 and 11 May to discuss the death penalty in Commonwealth African countries, Amnesty International welcomes positive action across Africa to abolish capital punishment. About half of the countries in Africa no longer execute convicted prisoners.
In 1990, only Cape Verde had no provision for capital punishment in its legislation. By 2002, 10 countries in Africa had de jure abolished the death penalty, while 10 others had de facto abolished it.

Over the past 10 years the number of countries of the Economic Community of West African States and Mauritania that have legally abolished the death penalty or have not carried out executions has risen from one to 10. Only Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have carried out executions in the last decade.

In Nigeria the last person to be executed was hanged on 3 January 2001, as far as Amnesty International is aware. President Olusegun Obasanjo has repeatedly declared his opposition to the death penalty and in November 2003 initiated the National Study Group on the Death Penalty with a mandate to conduct a national debate on the issue and to make recommendations to the Federal Government by June 2004. Amnesty International is urging the National Study Group on the Death Penalty to recommend a complete abolition of the death penalty for all crimes.

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http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR010102004