Introduction

This is the third year running that Hands off Cain has prepared a report on the status of the death penalty worldwide. During the last year the situation has improved further: 120 countries are now abolitionist in one way or another (of these, 73 have abolished the death penalty completely, 14 have abolished it for ordinary crimes, 28 are de facto abolitionist, 2 are committed to abolition as members of the Council of Europe, 3 have a moratorium on executions in place), while 75 are retentionist. During 1999, other States either stopped inflicting the death penalty or carrying it out. This happened in Russia, when the Constitutional Court declared death sentences illegitimate and the former President Boris Yeltsin commuted by decree all death sentences; in Albania and Ukraine, when their Constitutional Courts issued a similar ruling, and these countries subsequently ratified Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms that imposes the abolition of the death penalty; in Bermuda, Nepal, East Timor and Turkmenistan, when they abolished the death penalty also for ordinary crimes. The situation on executions has improved, according to Amnesty International, which in 1999 reported at least 1,813 executions in 31 countries and 3,857 death sentences in 63 countries, with almost all the executions being carried out in 5 States: China (1,077), Iran (165), Saudi Arabia (103), the Democratic Republic of Congo (100) and the United States (98). The actual figures are definitely much higher. For instance, our Report shows that there were at least 600 executions in Iran, and 777 in Iraq; while 12 executions were carried out in the first 5 months of the year in Cuba, which does not mean that no executions were performed during the rest of the year but rather that the number was not revealed. The fact is that many countries keep information regarding the death penalty secret or do not make it public, in order to avoid censure by the international community - a sign that a country can no longer be proud of putting its own citizens to death. United Nations In 1999, the United Nations has continued to play a fundamental role in affirming the principle that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the progressive development of human rights. On April 28, 1999, Germany (which held the rotating EU presidency at the time) presented and the UN Commission on Human Rights approved, for the third year in succession, the resolution for a global moratorium on executions. This year the resolution was passed by an absolute majority (30 in favor, 11 against and 12 abstentions) and had a record number of cosponsors - 72, compared to 46 in 1997 and 65 in 1998. The initiative met with a grave setback at the 1999 session of the General Assembly, however. A resolution that aimed to abolish the death penalty and called for a moratorium on executions, proposed by Finland on behalf of the European Union and supported by 72 countries, was later withdrawn. Egypt and Singapore had presented amendments, endorsed by 72 States, which affirmed two principles already stated in the UN Charter: every State has the right to choose its own political, social and cultural system, and the UN must not encroach on the domestic jurisdiction of States. Mexico had suggested that the references to national sovereignty be offset by specifically defining in the text of the resolution the UN´s role in the promotion and respect of human rights within States, but the European Union rejected this proposal and, immediately afterwards, decided not to put the resolution for the moratorium to the vote at the General Assembly. The European Union missed a unique opportunity that would have resulted in the International Community taking an abolitionist stand which, at the dawn of the new millennium, would have had an incredibly strong symbolic value. The battle was not so much lost as thrown away, because there were enough abolitionist supporters to ensure that the resolution passed. The truth is that Europe decided to say no to the moratorium which, had it been approved by the UN, would have been the most powerful condemnation of human rights violations in retentionist countries, particularly the United States and China. Europe Europe is now a death-penalty-free continent, a status it has achieved in only a few years, mainly due to the politics of the Council of Europe that has been sensible enough to strictly impose, through the power of dialogue, the moratorium on executions with a view to complete abolition as a condition for countries who wish to join. This has resulted in almost all the countries of the former Soviet Union moving into the abolitionist camp. There are no more death sentences nor condemned prisoners in Russia now, because in February the Constitutional Court ordered tribunals throughout the country not to pronounce capital sentences, and in June former President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree commuting the 716 death sentences pending to life imprisonment or 25 years. The sole exception was the Muslim secessionist region of Chechnya where, in March, 2 people were shot after being condemned to death by a tribunal applying Sharia law. In Ukraine, the Constitutional Court declared capital punishment illegitimate on December 30. The Court said this was partly due to the country´s commitment with the Council of Europe which, in May, had decided to proceed to the annulment of the credentials of the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation in the light of the country´s failure to fulfill its engagements concerning the death penalty. The situation regarding Turkey, which is only part of European politics to some degree, is somewhat uncertain, but the fact that European Union has accepted its candidacy as a future member is a step towards greater democratization and the affirmation of human rights in that country. Turkey´s candidacy eliminates the risk of the country becoming isolated or, worse still, falling into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists; and may also speed up the abolition process, which could save the life of Abdullah Ocalan and dozens of other condemned prisoners awaiting execution. In this case, the European Union scored a victory with dialogue and compromise, which was as appropriate as the "unbending" attitude it adopted at the UN, which led to the defeat of the European resolution for the moratorium on executions, was mistaken. Within the EU, Italy has remained the leader of the international initiative against the death penalty. In 1999, the Italian Parliament and the Government, together with Hands off Cain, undertook international lobbying in favor of the UN moratorium on executions. The Italian Senate sent missions to El Salvador (which subsequently withdrew a law proposing that the death penalty be reintroduced and cosponsored the resolution for the moratorium on executions presented at the UN), Guatemala, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The Chamber of Deputies undertook missions to Barbados, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Pakistan. And while the EU resolution for a moratorium on executions was actually being discussed at the UN, also with a view to raising public awareness, Hands off Cain and former European Commissioner Emma Bonino visited with death row prisoners in Illinois and Florida. "The Colosseum Illuminates Life" initiative was inaugurated on December 12. The ancient monument and symbol of Rome is the "testimonial" of the international campaign against the death penalty. Throughout 2000, the lights that illuminate the Colosseum will change from white to gold for two days every time a State decides to impose the moratorium on executions or to abolish the death penalty, or when an execution is suspended or a death sentence commuted. During 1999, Pope John Paul II spoke out several times against the death penalty and defended condemned prisoners in various parts of the world. He made his most persuasive appeal during his visit to America last January: "The death penalty is both cruel and unnecessary. Modern society has the means of protecting itself without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform," convincing Missouri to grant a stay of execution to a condemned prisoner and commute his death sentence while the pontiff was there. European public opinion is becoming more and more anti-death penalty. A survey conducted in France in August shows an abolitionist majority for the first time (50% against 48%). Four years previously, the percentage in favor was much higher (55% as opposed to 43%). The Americas The American continent is the most death-penalty free after Europe - with the exception of the United States and the Caribbean. In 1999, there were 98 executions in the United States, 30 more than the previous year, and the highest number since 1951. Of these, 35 took place in Texas, which has actually been responsible for 222 of the 650 executions carried out nationwide since the Supreme Court approved the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. One hundred and thirteen have occurred during the watch of Governor George W. Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, who proudly describes himself as the "Law & Order Governor." Although international conventions forbid the execution of persons who committed their crimes as minors, the United States has not refrained from doing so. In the last 6 years, there have been 8 such cases: one in Nigeria and in Yemen, 2 in Iran, and 4 in the United States, the last being Sean Sellers, aged 29, who was put to death for a crime committed when he was 16, in Oklahoma on February 4. In 1999, 5 foreign citizens were executed in the United States, including 2 German brothers, Karl and Walter LaGrand. They went to the gallows in Arizona, where they were the first people to be executed since the Second World War, when many prisoners of war were hanged. In all 5cases, the U.S. did not respect Art. 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires that the consulate in question be immediately notified of the arrest of one of its citizens so that it can provide legal assistance. The death penalty in the U.S. is also a race issue. Since 1976, 11 whites have been executed for killing blacks, whereas 156 blacks have been executed for killing whites. Forty-seven percent of condemned prisoners are white and 43% are black, even though blacks comprise only 13% of the population. Whether it is applied or not appears to be a matter of luck. Only one murderer in 15 is actually sentenced to death, and one third of those sentenced avoid execution by submitting a series of appeals. Defendants who can afford good legal assistance are far more likely to receive lighter sentences than those who cannot. Moreover, a murder sentence varies considerably according to where the crime was committed. The differences, which can be marked, are evident not only from state to state, but also from county to county in the same state, and this lack of coherence derives from the attitude adopted by the local district attorney. In many states, experts have noted major discrepancies between the courts in urban and rural areas. From 1973 onwards, 84 people were released from death row after their innocence was finally proved; 8 people were released in 1999. A study has shown that from 1900 to 1985, 350 individuals were wrongly condemned for capital crimes, 23 of whom were executed. The strong commitment to abolition made by the different churches and religious leaders has had a resounding effect on U.S. public opinion and on the political leadership. A total of 5 pardons have been signed by 5 different governors, the highest number since 1976. In 1999, 14 states presented pro-abolition or pro-moratorium bills, because of the high number of miscarriages of justice. They all acknowledged the need to re-examine the capital punishment system. The Nebraska Parliament voted that all executions be suspended for two years, but the provision was vetoed by the governor in May. In Illinois, however, Governor George Ryan put in place a moratorium on executions, and began a series of public hearings to study the various aspects of the application of the death penalty. Furthermore, 6 states without the death penalty rejected, by a large majority, bills in favor of its reintroduction. On November 10, Senator Russ Feingold, D - Wisconsin, introduced a bill to abolish the federal death penalty and called on all states that impose the death penalty to cease the practice. "We are a nation that prides itself on the fundamental principles of justice, liberty, equality and due process. We are a nation that scrutinizes the human rights records of other nations. It is time for us to look in the mirror. As we go into a new millennium, let us leave this archaic practice behind." A Gallup poll conducted in February 2000 revealed that 66% of Americans favored the death penalty for murderers. This is the lowest pro-death penalty percentage in the U.S. in 14 years. Other polls have shown that the percentage in favor is below 50% when serious alternatives are offered to capital punishment, such as life imprisonment without parole. In the Caribbean the gallows, which had lain idle for many years, is once again projecting its sinister shadow over the area. The only thing that had put a stop to executions was the 1994 decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which ruled that capital sentences had to be commuted to life imprisonment if they were not carried out within five years. On January 29, the Justice Ministers of 12 Caribbean countries, infuriated by the JCPC decision, signed in Trinidad a declaration recommending that their governments withdraw from the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights and from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (to whose courts condemned prisoners can appeal) and then to re-accede, agreeing to everything contained therein except the parts referring to capital punishment. The governments of Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana chose to follow this path. Trinidad & Tobago and Cuba led the field in executions in the Caribbean. In Trinidad, 11 people were executed, including Dole Chadee and 8 members of his gang who made a fortune by trafficking cocaine from Latin America to the United States. Sentenced to death in 1996, all 9 were executed in the space of a few days in 1999. It was the first hanging in 5 years. The eleventh man to be hanged was Wenceslaus James, whose appeal was still pending before the Organization of American States. The execution took place despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission had established that Trinidad & Tobago had violated the rights guaranteed to James under the Inter-American Convention on Human rights and had recommended that he be compensated, possibly by having his sentence commuted. Officially, 12 executions were carried out in Cuba in the first 5 months of 1999, but the death penalty is thought to be inflicted more often. In May Sergio A. Duarte Scull and Carlos R. Peláez Prieto were executed; they had been sentenced to death in January for murdering two Italian tourists, Fabio Usubelli and Michele Niccolai, in September 1998. A law passed in February to combat the rise in petty crime, introduced the death penalty for a number of drug-trafficking offenses. Canada is the only Western country that regularly returns murder suspects to the United States without asking for a guarantee that they will not be executed. On April 30, in fact, Canada extradited Jeffrey McGee, a Newyorker accused of having killed a police officer, to Georgia where, on August 24, District Attorney Pete Skandalakis said he would ask for the death penalty. A countertrend is apparent in the British colony of Bermuda which, in December, abolished hanging and whipping after discussing the controversial proposal in Parliament long into the night. In March, the U.K. affirmed that its remaining 13 colonies had to abolish the death penalty if they wished to continue to enjoy the security and prestige of remaining British. The last execution took place in Bermuda in 1997 when two men, Buck Burrows and Larry Tacklyn, were hanged for assassinating the Governor of the territory. Asia Once again, Asia has proved to be the continent where the vast majority of executions take place. In many cases, the death penalty is applied strictly in accordance with the dictates of Sharia, that is, for nonviolent or minor crimes. China still holds the record for executions: in 1999, over one thousand were carried out for corruption and economic or financial crimes, in flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that China signed last year, thus engaging itself only to inflict the death penalty for most serious crimes. In January, in Fujian Province, 5 people were shot for smuggling and car theft, and in Jingzhou, in Hubei Province, 2 farmers were executed for robbing tombs dating back 2000 years. On January 27, the Intermediate People´s Court in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, sentenced a woman, Wang Hongying, 34, to death, for running a prostitution racket. In June, more than 100 drug traffickers were executed in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shantou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou on the eve of International Anti-Drug Day. On June 30, a woman, Zhou Xia, aged 36, was put to death at Anshan in Liaoning Province for having bought and sold heroin worth $750. On July 3, 4 people were given death sentences for being members of a smuggling ring that sold skins and parts of endangered tigers, leopards, snakes and other animals. On July 30, 2 chairmen of the Shanghai-listed Dongfang Boiler (Group) Company Ltd., were condemned to death for insider trading. The men were accused of having made about $500,000 by using confidential information to sell company shares. These death sentences are apparently the first handed down for bourse-related crimes. On November 9, the Supreme People´s Court confirmed the death sentence given to Zhang Deyuan, former president of the International Trust and Investment Company in Hunan Province, who accepted the equivalent of about $250,000 in bribes, and he was executed immediately. Television showed Zhang, grim-faced and with his arms bound behind his back, as he was led to the execution ground. Anniversaries and celebrations are considered perfect occasions for putting to death murderers, traffickers and corrupt individuals. At least 55 executions were arranged immediately prior to the Chinese New Year, which this year was celebrated on February 16. In China, religious dissidents also risk the death penalty. On November 1, the National People´s Congress unanimously passed a law making it possible to condemn to death members of the "Falun Gong sect" for murder and endangering China´s security. The group, which practises a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and qiqong, has been outlawed since July 1999. A few months previously, over 10,000 members of the sect emerged from nowhere to sit silently outside the leadership´s Zhongnanhai compound to demand official recognition of their faith. Of the 111 Falun Gong members arrested between July and November, 6 died in police custody: one who was beaten to death, one from a hunger strike, and 4 who committed suicide. When Portugal handed over its former colony Macao to China on December 20, it also passed on a part of Europe´s legal and human rights culture. During negotiations that preceded the handover, Portugal requested, among other things, strict guarantees that human rights will be respected and the death penalty will not be reintroduced. On November 29, the Chinese Government informed its Portuguese counterpart that the death penalty, provided for in China, will not be extended to Macao. In Iran, UN sources reported at least 138 executions between January and August, and the recurrent practice of amputating hands and feet. Sentences are often carried out in public, and at least one person who was a juvenile when the crime was committed was put to death. Opposition sources denounced at least 600 executions following student protests last summer. Spying for "Satan" (the United States) or for "Zionism" (Israel) is a frequent accusation. In March, 12 men and a youth, all leading figures in the Jewish community of the city of Shiraz, were arrested and accused of spying for Israel and the United States. They risk the death sentence. On April 14, Ahmad Asqarpour was publicly stoned in Babol for killing his three sons. He received 60 lashes before his execution, which began when the judge who pronounced sentence threw the first stone. The victim´s brother and other relatives were standing right in front, hurling stones in a fury. On October 16, Majid Mehrparvar, the leader of a gang who robbed truck drivers, was executed. The newspaper Ghods wrote that: "On the basis of Islamic law and on request of the victims´ relatives, the court ordered one of Mehrparvar´s eyes to be removed prior to the execution," since he was responsible for choosing the trucks the gang held up. In Iraq, at least 777 executions were held in 1999, only 34 of which were official confirmed. In January, 106 political prisoners were killed during 3 mass executions at Abu Ghurayb Prison, near Baghdad. The bodies were not returned to the families, but buried under cover of night in west Baghdad. In March, about 180 Iraqis were put to death in al-Sabkha, a Basra suburb, and another 56 were executed in the region´s maximum security prison. In April, 58 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghurayb Prison. The execution was justified by a secret presidential decree claiming that the men were guilty of treason. In October, 19 political dissidents and 104 prisoners were put to death at Abu Ghuray Prison. In November, Sharif Dafar Uday, aged 70, was executed along with his 7 sons. They had been arrested for having taken part in the assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein´s eldest son, Uday, in December 1998. The family was forced to collect the bodies one by one from a military hospital at Camp Rashid in Baghdad, and ordered to bury their dead in complete secrecy without any traditional funeral rites. The number of executions in Saudi Arabia rose sharply from 29 in 1998 to 99 in 1999, and 4 women and 59 foreigners were put to death. Sharia is applied to the letter, but also gives the victim´s family the chance of sparing the condemned prisoner´s life in exchange for financial compensation known as "blood money." In October, while Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Haji, aged 70, was being led to his place of execution in Abha´s Al-Najar Square the victim´s 2 sons rushed out of the crowd to talk to him. They asked Al-Haji if he had meant to murder their father. The condemned man "swore in the name of God" that he had only been trying to resolve a dispute between their father and a third party. The brothers pardoned him on the spot and also renounced their right to blood money (diya). The crowd reacted with cries of "God is great," some people fainted with emotion and others praised the brothers for their clemency. Another country where Sharia rules with a rod of iron is Afghanistan, where at least 14 public executions were carried out in 1999. On April 30, Mohammed Ullah, sentenced to death for murder, was shot by the victim´s brother at the Kabul Stadium before a crowd of three thousand. Some of the onlookers brought a picnic. On January 15, thousands of people watched in Kabul as a Taliban tank knocked over a 15-foot brick wall, sending it crashing down onto a 60-year-old man, Shuma Khan, convicted of sodomizing a 12-year-old boy. Initially it was believed that Khan had died and his body was loaded onto a truck and taken to the hospital, where doctors said the man was actually unconscious and suffering serious head injuries. If the convicted person survives, the sentence is commuted, according to Taliban law. Before Khan´s execution, 6 thieves had their right hand and left foot amputated in the stadium by doctors who first gave them an anesthetic. The left foot of a seventh man, Mohammed Yaqub, was also cut off for theft. Yaqub was a repeat offender who had already had his right hand amputated. Before his left foot was cut off, Taliban authorities forced him to walk around the stadium showing the limb that had been amputated. In September, 5 men were executed under a wall, and another was hanged on a crane and his body exposed. Others were executed by throat-cutting and a person convicted for murder was executed by the brother of the victim. In December, a woman identified solely as Zarmeena, with her face covered by a blue "burka," was shot before about 4,000 people at the Kabul Stadium. The mother of 7 children, she was convicted for killing her husband 4 months previously. This was the first public execution of a woman since Islamic seminarians assumed power in Afghanistan. North Korea held over 750 public executions between 1995 and 1998, and at least 47 in 1999. Generally, executions are carried out by a firing squad under the orders of the police. Sometimes, the death convicts are hanged. After the offenders have been put to death the police urge the crowd of onlookers to throw stones at the corpses, to show their hatred for criminals. There were at least 34 executions in Yemen in 1999. In June, a man sentenced to death for a double murder was publicly shot and then crucified in a square in the northern town of Taiz. The newspaper Al Thawra reported that the body was bound to a cross at the place where the murders were committed. In Thailand, 17 prisoners were put to death this year at Bang Khwang, the prison in the outskirts of Bangkok where the executions are held, as against 2 in 1998. Among them were Samai Pan-intara, a woman of 59 and drug-trafficker, who was shot in November, together with 2 other prisoners accused of murder. She was the first woman to be executed in twenty years. Singapore, too, carried out more executions in 1999 than in the previous year: 15 as of July, including a woman and 2 foreigners, nearly all of whom were hanged for drug-trafficking. In Vietnam, drug-traffickers are also shot (at least 9 in 1999). In June, the National Assembly approved the new Penal Code. The death penalty remains in force for a number of serious economic crimes but has been abolished for women who are either pregnant or have children of less than 3 years of age. In December, the number of death-qualifiable offenses was further reduced by one third, above all with regard to economic and administrative crimes, such as misappropriation and embezzlement. The last execution took place in Sri Lanka on June 23, 1976, but in October it was rumored that executions were soon to start up again. The 114 death convicts, including 4 women, in the Welikada and Bogambara prisons began to get jittery when they learnt that the hangmen - who had been out of work for so long they were given office jobs - were being asked to take a "refresher course." Although the last execution was carried out in India in 1995, this country is now having problems finding an executioner. On August 25, M. H. Shah of the Nadiad Sessions Court handed down a death sentence to Trikam Ravji Thakore, alias Tika, for the rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl. The day after, the man was transferred to the Vadodara Central Prison that has not lodged a prisoner sentenced to death for decades and does not have a hangman to carry out the death sentence. Nevertheless, a cell near the gallows has been white-washed. The cell had been under lock and key for several years, often being used to stock firewood. Birds, an integral part of the prison family, flocked the gallows till recently. In November, Nata Mullick, 73, a veteran hangman, who after tying the noose and pulling the lever 22 times in Calcutta jails has become an avid anti-death penalty campaigner, rejected a request from prison authorities in Madras to execute the 4 death convicts who killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Sonia Gandhi herself asked that the death sentence given to one of the 4, S. Nalini, a woman and mother of a little girl, be commuted. "No child should be orphaned or made to suffer by an act of the state," the Congress president said. Despite appeals from Pope John Paul II and the international community the Philippines executed Leo Echegaray, sentenced to death for raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter, in February. This was the first execution after 23 years of legal or de facto abolition. Six people were executed in 1999, including 3 rapists, who constitute the vast majority of prisoners on death row, 650 out of 1,000 in fact, including at least 5 who were minors when they committed the crime. At least 8 executions were held in Pakistan this year, where there are 3,728 condemned prisoners, including 107 who were minors when they committed the crime. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, chaired by Asma Jehangir who is also the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, 20% of all trials held in Pakistan end in a death sentence, which is one of the highest percentages in the world. The one positive note is that in February the Supreme Court declared trials held by military tribunals and the sentences handed down by these courts to be unconstitutional. Asia was not only the scene of executions in 1999, however. On May 1, Nepal completely abolished the death penalty, after abolishing it in 1990 for ordinary crimes, and the maximum sentence provided for by law is now 25 years imprisonment. On this occasion Justice Minister Tirtha Man Shakya declared: "Nepal has been more courageous than the U.S. and other developed countries in abolishing the death penalty. Nepal has set an example on human rights." On November 27, the death penalty was formally abolished in East Timor by UN pro tem administrator Sergio Vierira de Mello. As well as the death penalty, a number of laws were abolished that maintained a state of emergency in East Timor during the Indonesian occupation, from 1975 until October 1999. Africa Africa is the continent with the highest number of de facto abolitionist countries, all of which provide for the death penalty but have not carried it out for decades. But it can easily retrogress and reintroduce or resume executions, especially in the aftermath of a civil war or coup d´état. This happened to Rwanda in 1998, where 22 people were publicly shot for their part in the 1994 mass slaughter in which more than 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. A genocide that is now being judged by the UN International Criminal Tribunal in Tanzania, where the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. About 40 defendants accused of genocide chose to consign themselves to the UN tribunal rather than ending up in Rwandan prisons where 125,000 prisoners are awaiting trial and could receive the death sentence. There is a similar situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the transitional government led by Laurent Kabila is still grappling with Tutsi rebels who, supported by Rwanda and Uganda, occupy the eastern part of the country. At least 100 people have been executed, almost all of them in public, and the country has the highest number of executions in the African continent for 1999. In April, 11 people were shot in Mbuji-Mayi, the diamond capital in the eastern province of Kasai; in May, twenty soldiers met the same end in Lubumbashi for military crimes, as did 15 petty criminals that had however been condemned by a military tribunal; and 23 people sentenced to death for robbery and misappropriation were executed at a military camp in Tshatsi, near Kinshasa. But on December 15, the Congolese Government freed 156 condemned prisoners, including many political opponents, to mark the 51st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Uganda has the second highest number of executions in Africa, and on April 28, 28 people were executed at Luzira Prison in Kampala. The prisoners were given 3 days warning, so that they might say goodbye to their relatives, order special meals, and pray. In November, 500 inmates accused of treason, and who could therefore receive the death sentence, began a hunger strike to protest against prison conditions and drawn-out pre-trial procedures that last for 3 years. No executions were reported in Sudan in 1999. But in April, as if to make up for this, a judge sentenced 10 people to death by crucifixion for having instigated the February riots in the city of Darfur during which 131 people were killed and 85 wounded. Swaziland is anxious to reintroduce executions, which have not been carried out since 1982, but is still having difficulties finding executioners. "If you are the hangman, no one wants to get close to you. You have no friends. It is a lonely job," said Muntu Mswane, Minister of Public Service and Information. The situation has changed in Nigeria, which until 1998 was a human rights pariah since the execution of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni minority rights activists. After his government took power on May 29, newly-elected President Olusegun Obasanjo, a general who in 1995 risked the death sentence for having organized a coup, ordered the release of thousands of inmates who had been detained for over 2 years awaiting trial. After 7 years of civil war, 100,000 killings and hundreds of missing people in Algeria, newly-elected President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has launched a policy of reconciliation. In June, he decided to grant mercy to fundamentalists if they surrendered following the "civil conciliation" law, approved by a large majority of the Parliament and part of an agreement between the Government and the group "Islamic Army of Safety." In South Africa, opposition parties have continued to push for the reinstatement of the death penalty. South Africa is one of the countries with the highest crime rate in the world, with 52 murders and 104 rapes for every 100,000 inhabitants per year. Former President Nelson Mandela declared that capital punishment would not be reintroduced as long as the African National Congress remained in power. The debate calmed down somewhat after the June 2 elections that saw the ANC returned to power with an overwhelming parliamentary majority for a second 5-year term, and Thabo Mbeki elected as President of South Africa. Outlook As this Report is going to print, the UN Commission on Human Rights has approved, in Geneva, for the fourth year running, a resolution presented by the European Union for the moratorium on executions with a view to the complete abolition of the death penalty. The resolution, sponsored by 70 countries, passed with 27 votes in favor, 13 against and 12 abstentions. With this vote the European Union, by once again taking up the international initiative and passing the test in Geneva, has begun to redeem itself after the bad showing at the UN General Assembly, in November. Now, we are waiting to see if the EU will shoulder its responsibilities to the full and put the proposal for the global moratorium on executions to the vote at the next UN General Assembly. If the Geneva vote and text is confirmed by the General Assembly, it would be tantamount to affirming of a new human right: the right not to be killed following a judicial measure or a legal sentence.