Law Campaign
The World Day Against Death Penalty 2005
The WCADP organizes the World Day against the Death Penalty annually to mobilize people around the world to take action against the death penalty. This year, on 10 October, the day was dedicated to abolition in Africa.
Also Amnesty International (AI) is a member of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty (WCADP) - a coalition of over 38 human rights organizations, bar associations, trade unions and local and regional authorities campaigning for the universal abolition of the death penalty. A majority of African countries are no longer using capital punishment, but the abolition must be extended to the whole continent.
Africa is on its way to universal abolition of the death penalty. Of the 53 countries on the continent, 12 have permanently abolished the death penalty, and 20 other countries are no longer carrying out executions. Thus a majority of African countries have abandoned using this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
The campaign call upon to use all available means in order to extend abolition of the death penalty to the whole continent, by supporting an immediate end to the few executions still practised and the commutation of all death sentences, by securing the abolition of the death penalty under each national legislation, by ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and by furthering and supporting initiatives in this direction by the African Union and the United Nations.
Following the example of values espoused by Nelson Mandela, of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone which exclude capital punishment for perpetrators of the most serious crimes and remembering that several African countries have never applied the death penalty, they believe that the moment has come for all of Africa to incorporate the right to life into the national penal code of each African country by abolishing the death penalty.
Source: Amnesty International
