Central Africa MPs vote to end capital punishment

AFP-Jiji

12:03 JST, May 28, 2022

Lawmakers in the Central African Republic on Friday voted to abolish the death sentence, the speaker of the national assembly announced, in a country torn by civil war.

The last execution dates back to 1981.

“The National Assembly has voted by acclamation for the legislation abolishing the death sentence,” speaker Simplice Mathieu Sarandji told applauding deputies.

President Faustin-Archange Touadera still has to issue the legislation for it to become law.

Rights group Amnesty International welcomed the “good news” and urged him to do so.

“We invite the president… to promulgate this law,” Amnesty said in a tweet.

“We are very satisfied, but aware that we will need to raise awareness among the population,” lawyer Bruno Gbiegba, coordinator of a pressure group against the death penalty, told AFP.

The Central African Republic follows Chad in 2020 and Sierra Leone last year in banning capital punishment on the African continent in recent years.

The second least developed nation in the world according to the United Nations, the country has been wracked by civil war since 2013, though it has decreased in intensity since 2018.

Government forces and their Russian allies have pushed rebels from much of the territory they once controlled, without definitively restoring the state’s presence throughout the country.