On January 5, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General,...

On January 5, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, the Guyana Government denounced the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The denouncement would have taken effect from April 5, but at the same time Guyana decided to re-accede to the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR with a reservation to Art. 6 thereof with the result that the Human Rights Committee shall not be competent to receive and consider communications from any person who is under sentence of death for the offenses of murder and treason in respect to any matter relating to his prosecution, detention, trial, conviction, sentence or execution of the death sentence and any matter connected therewith. "Accepting the principle that States cannot generally use the Optional Protocol as a vehicle to enter reservations to the ICCPR itself, the Government of Guyana stresses that its reservation to the Optional Protocol in no way detracts from its obligations and engagements under the Covenant, including its undertaking to respect and ensure to all individuals within the territory of Guyana and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the Covenant (in so far as not already reserved against) as set out in Art. 2 thereof, as well as its undertaking to report to the Human Rights Committee under the monitoring mechanism established by Art. 40 thereof." The Guyanese Government pulled out of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Committee (UNCHR), which had suggested in May 1998 that Abdool Saleem Yasseen and Noel Thomas, two death row prisoners since 1987 who in 1996 had filed the first complaint to the body, not only be spared from death but also be released from prison after 10 years on death row (see 1999 Report).