INDEX

On the occasion of the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty held on 21-23 June this year, the World Coalition gathered in Oslo, with about 150 delegates attending the Congress representing more than 50 member organizations.

From 21th to 23rd of June, the 6th World Congress against the death penalty took place in Oslo. These three days constituted an opportunity to gather the civil society, the political actors and lawyers worldwide, in order to discuss strategies aiming at abolishing the death penalty around the world. Among the noteworthy debates which were organized during this congress, the roundtable that was dedicated to terrorism (being also the theme of the next World Day against the death penalty, organized by the World Coalition) raised significant issues related to the use of the death penalty while countering terrorism.

In the context of the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, the World Coalition together with Hands Off Cain and Amnesty International co-hosted a side event focusing on the 6th UNGA resolution for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, whose adoption will be decided in New York in December this year.

Nauru recently ended its de facto moratorium by abolishing the death penalty in law.

An Iranian Court has sentenced the prominent human rights defender Narges Mohammadi to 16 years in prison. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her peaceful anti-death penalty activities with the Campaign “LEGAM” (Step by step for abolition of the death penalty). Iran Human Rights (IHR) calls for immediate international reactions. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR, said: ” Despite President Rouhani’s promises of respecting civil rights, Iranian authorities’ tolerance for peaceful civil activities is record low”.

On May 23rd, 2016, the closing ceremony of the project “My pencil for abolition” took place at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This project was organized by the team of “Educating and Raising Awareness on Abolition” in the association Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM): it consisted in involving a few middle and high school’s classes, from Lorraine, Belfort and the Parisian region, in the elaboration of articles and cartoons in order to create a magazine committed to the abolition of the death penalty, known as the Abolition Mag.

A report describing the socio-economic profiles of death row inmates in India was recently released by the National Law University’s Death Penalty Research Project (based in New Delhi).

In the context of the new project to increase mobilization towards the abolition of the death penalty in Africa, from 15 to 19 April 2016 the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has been engaged in several important activities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.Tanzania is a country that still retains the death penalty in its laws though it is abolitionist in practice, the last execution took place in 1994.

On March 20, 2016, a tense presidential election in the Republic of the Congo resulted in the re-election of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for a total of 32 years. One of the election’s least discussed outcomes is its solidification of the new constitution that President Sassou introduced last year and that provides for abolition of the death penalty.

During the 58th Extraordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), the Working Group of the ACHPR on the death penalty in Africa, in partnership with the World Coalition, the FIACAT and the FIDH, organized a panel discussion about the death penalty in Africa, on April 16, 2016.