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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Aug 2012 : 10:09:14
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Bev, there are 44 death row prisoners.
As for Amnesty; they are involved and will be issuing a press release today. They are also putting together a campaign and will launch that in the next couple of days.. Here is the content of the press release. When it goes live I will send you the link
Gambia: President Jammeh must retract call for execution of death row inmates
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Any attempt to carry out this threat would be both deeply shocking and a major set-back for human rights in Gambia.
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Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International’s Africa director.
Tue, 21/08/2012
Gambian president Yahya Jammeh’s reported comments that people sentenced to death in The Gambia will be executed by September must not be acted on, and must be retracted, Amnesty International said today.
President Jammeh made the comments in a televised address broadcast on Sunday evening and again on Monday to mark the Muslim feast of Eid-al-Fitrt.
If executions are carried out in Gambia, it will mark an end of a 27-year period without executions. The last execution in The Gambia took place in 1985.
Amnesty International presently classifies The Gambia as abolitionist in practice, and therefore as one of the 141 countries [more than two thirds of states] worldwide which have abolished the death penalty either in law or practice.
"President Jammeh’s comments are deeply troubling and will undoubtedly cause severe anguish to those on death row and their families,” said Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International’s Africa director. “Any attempt to carry out this threat would be both deeply shocking and a major set-back for human rights in Gambia.”
“The President’s statement is in stark contracts to the trend, both in West Africa and globally, towards ending the use of the death penalty.”
This is not the first time President Jammeh has made such threats. In September 2009, he announced that executions would resume to counter rising crime. In October of that year, the Director of Public Prosecutions was reported as saying that all prisoners sentenced to death would be executed by hanging as soon as possible.
While no executions were carried out following these statements, the current threat remains a matter for serious concern.
According to the Gambian government, there were 42 men and two women on death row as of 31 December 2011, 13 of whom had been sentenced during that year. In The Gambia, capital punishment can be imposed for murder and treason.
"Unfair trials are commonplace in the country, where death sentences are known to be used as a tool against the political opposition and international standards on fair trials are not respected”, said Audrey Gaughran.
“The number of grossly unfair trails is shocking and an especially serious concern in cases where the death penalty is handed down.”
Background
No West African country has executed prisoners in recent years and the death penalty for all crimes has been abolished in Togo in West Africa, as well as in Burundi, Gabon and Rwanda in the last five years.
In July, Benin became the 75th state worldwide to join the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1989, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
Gambia is a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In 2008, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the body monitoring this regional treaty, adopted a resolution calling on States Party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to observe a moratorium on the execution of death sentences with a view to abolishing capital punishment.
During a session of the Commission in Banjul, Gambia, in May 2011, the Chairperson of the African Commission’s Working Group on the Death Penalty in Africa, stated that “capital punishment… represents a most grave violation of… the right to life under Article 4 of the African Charter”.
Under international standards, the death penalty can only be imposed for crimes where there is an intention to kill which results in the loss of life. According to the United Nations, this excludes the possibility of imposing death sentences for activities of a political nature, including treason, espionage and other vaguely defined acts described as 'crimes against the State'.
For Africa: 38 of the 54 member states of the African Union are abolitionist in law (16) or practice (22), also more than 2 thirds.
Amnesty report
An Amnesty International Death Penalty report in 2011 stated:
Thirteen new death sentences were handed down for murder and treason in Gambia in 2011 after often grossly unfair trials, although no executions were carried out.
Seven out of eight people on whom such sentences were imposed in 2010 for plotting to overthrow the government were confirmed by the Court of Appeal in April.
Gambia abolished the death penalty for drug-related offences, which had been extended only in 2010, and replaced it with life imprisonment on 4 April.
Amendments were also made to the Criminal Code Act and the Trafficking in Persons Act 2007, to make them compatible with the 1997 Constitution which contains Article 17(2), prohibiting the death penalty for offences not involving violence, or the administration of a toxic substance, resulting in the death of another person.
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Momodou
Denmark
11823 Posts |
Posted - 22 Aug 2012 : 11:42:12
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Opposition leaders react to death penalty threats
The Point: Published on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The leaders of opposition parties in the country have been reacting to comments made by President Yahya Jammeh, who recently declared that by the middle of next month (September 2012), all death sentences would have been carried out to the letter.
While Ousainou Darboe, leader of the United Democratic Party described the declaration as “unfortunate”, the opposition Gambia Moral Congress on the other hand said with the majority of those on death-row being convicted of crimes of a political nature, it would be an irreversibly fatal travesty to put those people to death.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 22 Aug 2012 : 21:51:23
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| I am hoping he won't act on his words. |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
Posted - 22 Aug 2012 : 22:10:16
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I stand corrected... And who better to correct me?
The courts of the Gambia are ordered by Section 18, Subsection (2) of the Constitution of the Gambia as follows:
"As from the coming into force of this Constitution, no court in the Gambia shall be competent to impose a sentence of death for any offence unless the sentence is prescribed by law and the offence involves violence or the administration of any toxic substance, resulting in the death of another person."
There are some people who are currently sentenced to death who ought not to be sentenced to death since they have killed no one. This is the first point. Secondly, subsection (3) of this section also adds that "The national Assembly shall within ten years from the date of the coming into force of the Constitution review the desirability or otherwise of the total abolition of the death penalty in The Gambia."
This has not been done and the time has elapsed. To extend the time there is need for an amendment of section 18 subsection (3) which cannot be done without a referendum. If the President respects the Constitution he would subject the issue of abolition of the death penalty or other wise to a referendum. This is how matters stand.
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Momodou
Denmark
11823 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2012 : 12:55:36
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France condemns death penalty threats
The Point: Published on Thursday, August 23, 2012
France has condemned in a stern declaration remarks by President Yahya Jammeh that, by the middle of next month, all death sentences would have been carried out to the letter.
In a statement issued by the French ministry of foreign Affairs and posted on its official web site, France said The Gambia has applied a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1981.
“France therefore urges Gambia to maintain this moratorium with a view toward the definitive abolition of the death penalty, and not to execute these death row prisoners. It also demands that Gambia commute all death sentences to custodial sentences,” France stated.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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kobo
United Kingdom
7765 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2012 : 23:21:31
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FOROYAA NEWS WITH;
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Momodou
Denmark
11823 Posts |
Posted - 24 Aug 2012 : 14:59:38
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African Union urges Gambia to stop prisoner executions
BBC: Published on 24 August 2012
 The African Union has asked Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh to renounce plans to execute all death row prisoners next month.
Mr Jammeh made the comment during a speech he gave to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid.
A Gambian pressure group says many of the 47 death row inmates are political prisoners or have faced unfair trials.
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Jonathan urges Africa to respond to Jammeh’s threats
The Point: Published on Friday, August 24, 2012
Reactions to President Yahya Jammeh’s threat that by the middle of next month (September 2012), all death penalties would have been carried out in The Gambia continues, with the latest coming from Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan, who arrived in neighbouring Senegal on a 24-hour working visit, told journalists in Dakar on Thursday that the entire African continent “should respond” to Jammeh’s threats to implement the death penalty, Senegalese daily Rewmi reported yesterday.
“Such an act would mean genocide in Africa, after that of Rwanda,” Jonathan was quoted as saying.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
Posted - 24 Aug 2012 : 16:12:18
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Too Late...
9 families lost their sons/husbands/fathers/brothers last night and another 9 will loose them tonight. Come on someone... Do something!! |
Edited by - Scorpiorain on 24 Aug 2012 16:14:26 |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 24 Aug 2012 : 21:59:46
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| This has made the BBC news today, but no-one is doing anything. Terrible. |
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Scorpiorain
Barbados
152 Posts |
Posted - 25 Aug 2012 : 00:45:17
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its also made cnn and al jazeera.. hopefully it's made it in all 4 corners of the world..
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sab
United Kingdom
912 Posts |
Posted - 25 Aug 2012 : 15:21:05
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/08/201282502333291284.html
Shocking - he acted swiftly before too many countries & organisations got a hold. Just like the executions that took place in Nigeria under General Sani Abacha on KEN SARO WIWA (my avatar) AND 8 OGONI PEOPLE.
I note the report of two Senegalese were amongst the executed - let us pray no repercussion in any form from the Senegalese.
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The world would be a poorer place if it was peopled by children whose parents risked nothing in the cause of social justice, for fear of personal loss. (Joe Slovo - African revolutionary) |
Edited by - sab on 25 Aug 2012 16:33:25 |
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Momodou
Denmark
11823 Posts |
Posted - 25 Aug 2012 : 15:36:38
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BBC reports: Nine executed in Gambia, says Amnesty International
H.E made it in the world headlines. GRTS Radio fail to report any of these reactions on their news.
UK says "deeply concerned" by Gambia execution reports
24-08-2012
BANJUL (Reuters) - British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said on Saturday he was "deeply concerned" by reports Gambia had executed nine prisoners and was preparing to execute others.
The tiny West African country declined late on Friday to confirm or deny an Amnesty International report saying nine of its 47 death row inmates were killed overnight Thursday.
"I am deeply concerned over reports that nine prisoners on death row in The Gambia have been executed following comments by President (Yahya) Jammeh that all death row prisoners would now be executed," Burt said. "I urge the Gambian authorities to halt any further executions."
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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