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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Zambia: Amnesty International welcomes the abolishment of the death penalty

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Responding to an announcement by Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema on Friday 23 December 2022, that he had assented to a law banning the death penalty and the offence of criminal defamation of the president, Tigere Chagutah Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa said:

“Amnesty International welcomes the announcement by President Hichilema that the death penalty has been abolished in Zambia. This is a good and progressive move that shows the country’s commitment to protecting the right to life.

“We also commend President Hichilema for quashing the offence of criminal defamation of the president, used until recently to muzzle free speech and unjustifiably limit freedom of expression in the country.

“With the abolition, Zambia the 25th country in sub-Saharan Africa to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.

“Zambia’s decision to ban the death penalty should serve as an example to countries in the region that still use the death penalty and compel them to take immediate steps to end this cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment and protect the right to life.”

Amnesty International also encourages Zambia authorities to promptly accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

BACKGROUND

In its latest report on the use of the death penalty, Amnesty International documented that executions in sub Saharan Africa more than doubled from 16 in 2020 to 33 in 2021.

There have been important steps towards abolition across Southern Africa in recent years. Angola, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, and South Africa have all abolished the death penalty.

Source: Amnesty International, Staff, December 23, 2022





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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Zambia
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