MIDWEEK REPORTER
Amnesty International has called for the abolishment of the death penalty which some member states have continued to use adding that this has been a major concern for the Committee Against Torture.
The global movement noted that the death penalty as a justice system is in itself a form of torture.
Speaking on behalf of Lucia Masuka, Executive Director, Amnesty International Zimbabwe, Roseline Mudzerengi told journalists about the push to have the death penalty abolished at an event to commemorate the World Day against the Death Penalty which falls on 10 October.
Mudzerengi told young journalists that the death penalty as a form of justice and practices that accompany its use constitute inhuman and degrading punishment and even torture.
“This is the reason why Amnesty International is opposed to the Death Penalty in all circumstances regardless of the nature of the crime or method that is used to carry out an execution and for 46 years we have been part of that movement that is campaigning against its use, and we will continue to do so until this practice is confined to the dustbins of history,” she said.
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 10 million people who take injustice personally and has been campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.
There have been questions as to whether the death penalty violates the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment.
It said that detention of prisoners on death row can be rendered cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or even torture when they are detained in isolation/solitary confinement, kept handcuffed, shackled or deprived of food and are overcrowded which violates the prohibition of torture.
Tungamirai Madzokere, an MDC activist who, alongside colleague, Last Maengahama was once on death row for three months said the death penalty must be abolished.
Madzokere said the death penalty usually is practised in secrecy and there are no notices of the date of an upcoming execution.
“When you are in the cells, you can even be traumatized by opening the door or gate at night as you will be thinking that the hangman has come.
“Additionally, the prisons that death row offenders are placed in are unusually tough environments, which by themselves can attribute to unwanted psychological damage,” he added.
Madzokere and Maengahama have been jailed for 10 years and they were acquitted in 2021 as they were serving a 20-year prison term each, on charges of murdering a police officer Petros Mutedza in 2011.
Last year, Zimbabwean legal pressure group, Veritas proposed for a re-trial of prisoners on the death row in addition to a petition to parliament requesting the legislature to pass a resolution on the matter. The petition calls for the death penalty to be abolished in Zimbabwe without delay.
Of the 16 member states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), seven have abolished the death penalty completely and only one continues to carry out executions.
Beheading, hanging, lethal injection, shooting, lethal gas, electrocution and firing squad are the methods used for executions.
