Kirghizstan definitively outlaws death penalty

Good news

on 18 February 2010

The parliament of Kirghizistan ratified the UN Protocol on the abolition of the death penalty on February 11, making the re-establishment of the death penalty illegal.
The French ministry of foreign affairs made the decision public and said in a communiqué: “France welcomes the ratification by the Kirghizstan Parliament of the bill relating to the adoption by Kirghizstan of the second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which aims to abolish the death penalty.”
World Coalition member organisation Penal Reform International confirmed the news. The president must now sign the ratification into law and have it deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations before Kirghizstan becomes the 73rd State party to the Protocol. The World Coalition expect this to happen in the coming weeks.
Kirghizstan was one of the target countries in the World Coalition’s campaign in favour of the ratification of the treaty, through which State parties pledge that they will never re-establish the death penalty. France is one of the “Friend of the Protocol” States that support this campaign.
Kirghizstan’s ratification comes months after a debate started there on the reinstatement of capital punishment, which was abolished in 2007. In 2009, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev commissioned a report on the death penalty from the National Security Council. Several members of the council had supported its re-establishment.