GABON ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY WELCOMED BY UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour welcomed the decision by Gabon to abolish capital punishment and urged the country’s Parliament to swiftly write the ban into its penal code. Gabon's Council of Ministers voted to ban the death penalty in the African nation, where there has been a moratorium on executions since the early 1980s. "This decision reinforces the growing movement towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide," Ms Arbour said in a statement. She encouraged the Government to consider becoming a party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on the abolition of the death penalty.