Thursday, 7 May 2015

Amnesty lauds Uganda for saving convicts


As the World is still recovering from the diplomatic row triggered by the recent judicial executions of nine foreign convicted drug traffickers in Indonesia, a 2015 Amnesty International report has cited Uganda among the few African countries sparing convicts from the gallows. 


While several countries led by Australia urged clemency for the convicts, Indonesia hurriedly executed the convicts by firing squad. The convicts came from Australia, Philippines, Indonesia and Nigeria.      



But a report on Death Penalty in Africa by Amnesty International says Uganda is among the few African countries which uphold death sentence but did not execute any convict last year. 



The same report named Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Somalia and Sudan as countries that heavily execute convicts. 
Equatorial Guinea executed nine; Egypt 15, Somalia 14 and Sudan 23, making a total of 61 judicial killing executed in Africa.  



Amnesty indicated that the continent registered 1446 death sentences in 2014. 



The report revealed that Nigeria recorded the highest number of death sentences standing at 659, followed by Egypt with 509 cases. 



Other countries with outstanding death sentences last year were Tanzania with 91 cases, Somalia 52+, Zambia 13, Zimbabwe 10 and Sierra Leon 3, Morocco 9, Sudan 14, Kenya 29, Ghana 9, Algeria 16, Mali 6 among others. 



Amnesty International observed that the 1446 death sentences on the continent posted a 139% increase in death sentences in 2014 as compared to 2013. Read more




No comments:

Post a Comment