Activists hope Morocco will abolish death penalty

30/01/2007

Paris will host the third congress for the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in February. Organizers say many of the country's political parties support the abolishment of the death penalty.

By Imrane Binoual for Magharebia in Casablanca – 30/01/07

[Imrane Binoual] (From left) Moroccan Human Rights Organisation President Amina Bouaayache, Human Rights Advisory Council President Driss Benzekri, Michel Taube and USFP leader Mohamed El Yazghi.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty will hold its 3rd world congress on Thursday (February 1st) through Saturday in Paris, France. Activists hope the event will persuade Morocco to become the first Arab country to abolish the death penalty.

According to Michel Taube, spokesman for the World Coalition, the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a cloud with a silver lining. He hopes the images from the execution "will make people in the Arab world realise the horror and futile violence of the death penalty … So if we condemn this execution we also have to condemn the death penalty, because if it was unacceptable for Saddam Hussein, one of the worst tyrants history has ever known, we have to recognise that it’s unacceptable for people who have committed less serious crimes," he told Magharebia.

Taube believes it is very important that the coalition seek to persuade at least one Arab country to move towards abandoning the death penalty. According to the organisers of the World Congress against the death penalty, no North African or Middle Eastern country has abolished it to date; in 2006 the number of executions rose sharply.

Campaigners are hoping that Morocco will become the first of these countries to abolish the death penalty. The last execution in Morocco took place in 1994. In January 2006, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission asked for the death penalty to be abolished. Recently, many of those sentenced to death have had their sentences commuted to a life sentence by King Mohammed VI. At present, 127 Moroccan prisoners, including five women, are on death row. Four of these were sentenced in 2006. Under the Moroccan penal code, 36 articles call for the death penalty, and 563 crimes are punishable by this sentence.

The Moroccan Coalition Against the Death Penalty, founded in October 2003, has been working to get the support of political parties, according to Youssef Madad, the co-ordinator of the coalition.

"All the political parties we met during our visit to Morocco -- the Istiqlal Party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, the Party of Progress and Socialism, the Islamic Party and the Justice and Development Party -- confirmed they will support us," Meryem Kaf, the Moroccan press officer at the Paris-based Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort, told Magharebia.

"This also signalled that they support the abolition of the death penalty in Morocco, with or without prior ratification of Protocol 2 of the UN."

"The death penalty is a law in the penal code, so we need more and more Moroccan politicians to take up the issue so that it will be discussed in parliament. That’s where the struggle against the death penalty will end and be won," Taube said.