A human right body, Amnesty International (AI) Ghana has revealed that death penalty is discriminatory and often used against the most vulnerable in society.
According to them, research has shown that death penalty is administered to the poor, those with less capacity to engage good lawyers, ethnic and religious minorities, and people with mental disabilities.
Amnesty made this revelation on September 8, 2022, during a media briefing on efforts made so far in the process of getting Parliament to amend the Criminal Offences Bill, Act 29 and Act 105 of the Armed Forces Bill to spearhead the abolishment of the death penalty.
Currently, there are 168 Ghanaians on death row waiting for their execution but for the past 30 years nobody has been executed, meanwhile, judges continue to give death sentences to people.
Based on this, Amnesty International is therefore calling on Ghanaians especially, the media to use their platforms to start the debate on the need to support Parliament to abolish the death penalty.
Giving an update on the process made so far in Parliament after the introduction of a private Member Bill, a renowned human rights lawyer and Member of Parliament for the Madina Constituency, Mr Francis Xavier Sosu said abolishing the two Acts automatically means about 96% of the provisions relating to the use of the death penalty would have been achieved.
Mr Sosu said the bill has gone through the first reading and is now referred to the Parliamentary Affairs, Legal and Constitutional Committee for consideration by the speaker where Parliament is now requesting the submission of memos in support of the bills to substitute the provision of the death penalty with life imprisonment.
The Board Chairman of Amnesty International Ghana, Mr Francis Nyantakyi said as partners in development, the death penalty coalition and stakeholders find it needful to engage the media and use this opportunity to appeal to you to push the course of the campaign. “That is why we are gathered here.”
Mr Nyantakyi said Amnesty International holds the view that the death penalty breaches human rights, in particular the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
He said, “we cannot use killing to replace the death penalty and because of the irreversibility of it, a life sentence is a way forward adding that the role of the media has always played a major factor in abolishing the death penalty.”
“Every year, Amnesty International publishes the death sentence and executions report which highlights the plight of people put on death row by their governments and seeks ways of organizing a conscious effort to abolish the death penalty in the world,” he stated.
He said in 2021, there was an almost 40% increase in the number of death sentences from at least 1,477 in 2020 to 2,052 in 2021.
The Campaign and Fundraising Coordinator of Amnesty, Ms Belinda Adike Asamanyuah said Amnesty International understands that all 168 Ghanaians on death row were convicted of murder, which remains punishable by a mandatory death penalty in Ghana.
Ms Asamanyuah said the fact that the death penalty remains in the statute books, judges will continue to sentence people which affects the country’s human rights credentials.
She said West African countries such as Togo abolished the death penalty in 2009, Gabon in 2010, Benin in 2012, Guinea in 2016 for ordinary crimes and 2017 for military crimes, Burkina Faso in 2018, and recently Sierra Leone in 2021 so what is happening in Ghana.
