Sri Lanka: Resuming Death Penalty a Major Setback

Source: Human Rights Watch (30 June 2019)

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/30/sri-lanka-resuming-death-penalty-major-setback

(New York) – The Sri Lanka government should halt plans to resume executions and restore its de facto 43-year moratorium on the use of the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena said he has ordered the execution of four drug offenders, claiming it would end increasing addiction problems in the country.

“Sri Lanka’s plan to resume use of the death penalty is a major setback for human rights,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Sri Lanka has been a bulwark against capital punishment in Asia for more than four decades, yet now the Sirisena government wants to throw in its lot with less rights-respecting regimes.”

The death penalty has not been carried out in Sri Lanka since 1976. Currently, 1,299 prisoners – 1,215 men and 84 women – are on Sri Lanka’s death row after having been convicted for capital offenses, including 48 people convicted for drug crimes.

Sirisena said he was determined to crack down on drug trafficking after over 300,000 people in Sri Lanka allegedly became addicts, with 60 percent of 24,000 prison inmates incarcerated for drug-related offenses.

The United Nations General Assembly has continually called on countries to establish a moratorium on the death penalty, progressively restrict the practice, and reduce the offenses for which it might be imposed – all with a view toward its eventual abolition.

Where the death penalty is permitted, international human rights law limits the death penalty to “the most serious crimes,” typically crimes resulting in death or serious bodily harm. In a March 2010 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime called for an end to the death penalty and specifically urged member countries to prohibit use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, while urging countries to take an overall “human rights-based approach to drug and crime control.”

In its 2014 annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board, the agency charged with monitoring compliance with UN drug control conventions, encouraged countries to abolish the death penalty for drug offenses. The UN Human Rights Committee and the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions have concluded that the death penalty for drug offenses fails to meet the condition of “most serious crime.” In September 2015, the UN high commissioner for human rights reaffirmed that “persons convicted of drug-related offences … should not be subject to the death penalty.”

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. The alleged deterrent effect of the death penalty has been repeatedly debunked.

“The death penalty is a cruel practice that has no place in modern society for combating drug crimes or any other offense,” Adams said. “Sri Lanka should work toward upholding its human rights pledges and immediately rescind the execution orders.”

After recruitment drive ends, Sri Lanka picks two hangmen as death penalty for drug offences resume

Source: South China Morning Post (29 June 2019)

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3016632/after-recruitment-drive-ends-sri-lanka-picks-two-hangmen-death

Sri Lanka has hired two hangmen as it prepares for executions of four prisoners convicted of drug offences in what would be the country’s first use of the death penalty for over 40 years, prison authorities said on Friday.

The Prisons Department began the recruitment process in March after the last hangman
quit in 2014, citing stress after seeing the gallows for the first time. Another, hired last year, never turned up for work.

President Maithripala Sirisena announced on Wednesday an end to a moratorium on the death penalty in force since 1976, a move political analysts said was meant to boost his chances of re-election if he stands again later this year.

Local and international rights groups, along with Britain, Canada, the European Union and United Nations have raised concerns about the South Asian nation’s restoration of capital punishment

“The recruitment process is finalised and two [hangmen] have been selected. The two need to go through final training which will take about two weeks,” prisons spokesman Thushara Upuldeniya said.

The two were picked from among 100 applicants who responded to an advertisement calling for male Sri Lankans aged between 18 and 45 with “excellent moral character” and “mental strength”.

Prisons Commissioner TMJW Thennakoon declined to provide details of the four convicts whose death penalties were approved by the president.

On Friday, a petitioner – a Sri Lankan journalist – filed public interest litigation seeking to stop any executions, arguing that people’s rights were being violated. A court hearing will be held on July 2, and Thennakoon pledged that there would be no executions for the next seven days.

A spokesman for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Thursday international drug control conventions cannot be used to justify the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences alone.

“Application of the death penalty may also impede international cooperation in fighting drug trafficking as there are national laws that [bar] the exchange of information and extradition with countries which may impose capital punishment for the offences concerned,” the UNODC spokesman said.

Criminals in Sri Lanka are regularly given death sentences for murder, rape and drug-related crimes but until now their punishments have been commuted to life in prison.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse