Legal and Human Rights Centre

The Southern African Human Rights NGO (SAHRINGON) Tanzania Chapter, in collaboration with the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) and the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), will on October 10 this year hold a public debate on the death penalty as part of the activities to mark Anti-death Penalty Day.

SAHRINGON lawyer Anando Swenya told this paper in Dar es Salaam yesterday that members from 80 civil society organizations under SAHRINGON would take part in the debate, which will be preceded with a peaceful march.

University of Dar es Salaam lecturer Prof. Chris Peter Maina, retired Chief Justice Barnabas Samata and Judge Robert Makaramba are some of the key people who will make presentations during the debate.

According to Swenya, the gathering is expected to bring together representatives from different ministries, embassies, civil society organizations, as well as UN agencies.

Last year, the three organizations marked the day by holding a peaceful march before they filed a petition at the High Court calling for the government to abolish the death penalty.

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Committee called on governments to seriously consider abolishing the death penalty by becoming a party to the Second Optional Protocol of the Covenant, while ensuring that the rights of detainees on the death row are not violated.

The call was part of recommendations by the UN body, released after the ninety-sixth session in response to a periodical report on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, submitted by governments on August 25, this year.

Activists consider the death penalty as degrading and feel that there are chances that an innocent person may be executed for being wrongly implicated in a murder case.

In Tanzania, the death penalty is a mandatory sentence for people who are convicted of murder. However, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations has noted that legislations dictating mandatory imposition of the death penalty are prohibited under international human rights law as they violate the right to life.

Tanzania is one of 25 countries in the world which continues to retain the death penalty on its statute books.