Republic of Sierra Leone abolishes death penalty – archyworldys

About fifty states in the world continue to apply the death penalty, Sierra Leone is no longer one of them. Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio promulgated on Friday, October 8, the abolition of the death penalty in this small West African country.

“Today we are writing a page of history again […]. After twenty years, we are keeping the promise we made to ourselves as a nation: after twenty years, the death penalty is finally completely abolished in the Republic of Sierra Leone ”, said the head of state during the signing ceremony in the capital, Freetown. This promulgation follows the vote, on July 23 by the National Assembly, of the abolition law, replaced by a sentence of imprisonment for life or for a minimum of thirty years.

This former British West African colony was criticized by human rights activists for failing to officially abolish the death penalty, even though the last executions dated back to 1998, when 24 army officers were put in office. to death after an attempted coup a year earlier. Death sentences were generally commuted to life imprisonment. In 2020, the president commuted seven death sentences, said Deputy Justice Minister Umaru Napoleon Koroma. But 94 people remained under such a sentence at the end of last year, he said.

“Faith in the sacredness of life”

In spite of the vote of the deputies, on July 23, the abolition remained however suspended to the promulgation by the head of the State. “The first time I proposed to abolish the death penalty entirely for all capital crimes, it met with broad skepticism, cynicism, and even open hostility.”, said the head of state on Friday.

“My position was to say no to the death penalty in all its forms, for any crime whatsoever”, he added, speaking of punishment “Cruel, inhuman and degrading”. “We are a civilized country; we must not execute anyone and we will never execute anyone again in this sovereign Republic ”, he said. “By abolishing the death penalty in Sierra Leone, we are today affirming our faith in the sanctity of life”, he finally declared.

The Sierra Leonean Constitution of 1991 provided for the death penalty for aggravated theft, murder, treason and mutiny. Sierra Leone is the latest African country to abolish the death penalty, after Chad last year and Malawi in April.

There were 144 abolitionist countries in 2020

At the end of 2020, Amnesty International counted 144 countries that were legally or de facto abolitionist, that is, those that had not carried out executions in the past ten years. That is to say nearly three quarters of the States in the world. Among them, more than 100 have legally abolished the death penalty, for all crimes, according to the NGO. Almost half of them are in Europe and Central Asia.

More than thirty African countries still retain the death penalty in their laws, but just under half have carried out executions in recent years. In 2020, no executions were recorded in Bahrain, Belarus, Japan, Pakistan and Sudan, while in 2019 these countries had all applied death sentences. The Gambia, Malaysia, Russia and Tajikistan maintained their moratorium on executions.