WHILE it has been 20 years since the last execution of an inmate in the country, there are 3,892 prisoners on death row as human rights activists joined hands in commemorating the World Day against the Death Penalty.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, the Legal and Human Rights Center (LHRC) Empowerment and Responsibility Director Ms Imelda Urio said that it was high Tanzania borrowed a leaf from other nations that have abolished the death penalty.
"There is no nation that has the right to take the life of its citizens, having the death penalty in your constitution and law only enhances vengeance, it does not bring about equality nor does it solve anything, this only is inhumane and discriminatory," she explained.
Ms Urio said that by condemning death penalty in the existing constitution and in the proposed Katiba that was recently passed by the Constituent Assembly doesn't mean that they condone people associating themselves to killings but rather to have lesser sentences.
This year's theme to mark the day has drawn attention to people with mental health problems who are at risk of a death sentence or execution.
While opposing the death penalty absolutely, abolitionists are also committed to see existing international human rights standards implemented.
Among these is the requirement that persons with mental illness or intellectual disabilities should not face the death penalty. "People on death role are put in a lot of psychological torture because they spend years after being sentenced to death waiting for their execution day," Ms Urio explained.
She said that in spite of the ongoing campaigns to push for the abolition of the death penalty, it was disheartening to see it still appearing in the draft constitution in Section 95 (1) (c) stating that the President has the power to overturn the death penalty to life sentence.
"In this sense, the constitution advocates for the continued presence of the death penalty approved constitutionally. This is a direct violation human rights and something in this day and age should be condemned. As the draft constitution is coming to the people, the most should be made from this opportunity," she said.
The LHRC recommend that section 95 (1) (c) of the draft constitution which gives the President the right to overturn the sentence should be stricken so that the forthcoming constitution should not have a section on the death penalty.
Other recommendations include Tanzania learning from other countries in the world that have managed to remove the death penalty from their laws and for Tanzanians to object to the law and not to be advocates of killings.
The LHRC Executive Director, Dr Helen Kijo-Bisimba chipped in saying that the law clearly states that the mode of execution should be through struggling and it should be until the person dies. "On the event that the rope being used in struggling the inmate cuts, then the exercise is redone until the person is dead," she said.
Source:allAfrica
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