INDEX

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights organised its first regional conference on the death penalty in Africa in late September.

The African human rights watchdog has asked Libya not to execute 20 Nigerians on death row in the North African country after a Nigerian NGO highlighted their plight.

Kenya’s president has commuted all death sentences in the country in the wake of legal challenges brought by local and international activists.

The University of Kinshasa has hosted a conference on the theme of death penalty-free justice to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court.

A group of Algerian parliamentarians has filed a bill aimed at abolishing capital punishment. The World Coalition supports their campaign to have the proposed legislation passed.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights calls for a moratorium on executions and the ratification of the UN Protocol for the abolition of the death penalty.

A working group of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights is preparing a report on capital punishment on the continent.

Rwanda and Burundi are apparently close to abolishing the death penalty; in the Democratic Republic of Congo, all references to capital punishment have been removed from the text of the constitution. The death penalty is on borrowed time in these countries scarred by conflicts. For the first time, the region’s abolitionists met in Paris and called for the creation of a regional coalition.