Sri Lanka should pull back from any plans to implement the death penalty and preserve its longstanding positive record, Amnesty International said yesterday.
President Maithripala Srisena was reportedly pressing ahead with plans to execute 19 death-row prisoners convicted of drug-related offences.
“By resuming executions after more than 40 years, Sri Lanka would damage its reputation. The government must immediately halt plans to carry out any executions, commute all death sentences, and establish an official moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition,” Amnesty International Deputy Director for South Asia Dinushika Dissanayake said.“Sri Lanka has been a leader in the region, with a record of shunning this punishment at a time when many other countries persisted with it. Now, when most of the world has turned its back on the death penalty, it risks heading in the wrong direction and joining a shrinking minority of states that persist with this practice.”
Amnesty International is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances, regardless of the crime or the method of execution.
Executing people for drug-related crimes is a violation of international law—which says the death penalty can only be imposed in countries that are yet to abolish it for the “most serious crimes”, meaning intentional killing—and would brazenly defy Sri Lanka’s international commitments, including its repeated votes in favour of a moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty at the United Nastions (UN) General Assembly, most recently in 2016.
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