Zimbabwe officially abolished the death penalty on Tuesday, December 31, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa promulgated a law which commutes the sentences of around sixty death row inmates to prison sentences. A moratorium on executions had been in effect in the country since 2005, but courts continued to impose the death penalty for crimes such as murder, treason and terrorism.
The law on the abolition of the death penalty, published in the Official Gazette on Tuesday, stipulates that courts can no longer impose capital punishment for any offense and that any existing death sentence is commuted to imprisonment. However, a provision provides that this abolition may be lifted in the event of a state of emergency.
“A historic moment”
At the end of 2023, at least 59 people were on death row in Zimbabwe, said the NGO Amnesty International in a press release welcoming this abolition as a “historical moment”. “We urge the authorities to move quickly towards total abolition (…) by removing the clause included in the amendments to the bill which authorizes the use of the death penalty in a state of emergency,” added Amnesty.
Twenty-four countries in sub-Saharan Africa have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while two others have abolished it only for common crimes, according to Amnesty. Of the sixteen countries carrying out executions in the world in 2023, only one, Somalia, is in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the NGO.
Source: www.liberation.fr
