SENEGAL. CABINET APPROVES BILL FOR ABOLITION

An official statement released after the debate in Cabinet said that “after a long introduction on the issue, a particularly broad debate took place and the Council of Ministers unanimously saluted the decision of the president” and “supported it without reservations.”
The government’s commitment to abolition had been expressed by the Minister for Human Rights in the Office of the President Mame Bassine Niang. during the HOC conference entitled “Moratorium on Executions” held in Rome in February and attended by ministers and members of parliament from various African countries.
HOC, in a letter to President Wade expressed its satisfaction at this latest development and stated its intention of supporting the passage of the bill in parliament through various initiatives including a visit to Dakar by its representatives and Italian and European Members of Parliament. The approval of the bill for abolition proves, in an “eloquent manner” the president’s “attachment to the sacred and inviolable of all human beings to life and the duty of the state to protect it,” CAPM, Senegal’s coalition for the abolition of the death penalty, said.
RADDHO, the African union for the defence of human rights, expressed “deep joy” for the Cabinet’s decision and urged members of parliament, to vote “as one man.” The bill proposed by the president would bring into line laws that prescribe the death penalty with the Constitution, which protects life, and what RADDHO described as Senegal’s abolitionist culture.
Senegal, a nation whose citizens are 94% Mulsim, has not put anyone to death since 1967. Death sentences are usually commuted to life imprisonment. President Wade - in March 2000 and on his fifth attempt - won Senegal’s first presidential elections to be considered truly free and impartial by international observers. Soon after, in January 2001, the nation approved a new constitution that overcame certain aspects of Sharia law and improved women’s lot. Wade, whose coalition government was in a minority in parliament, then dissolved the National Assembly. The April 2002 elections consolidated his power base by giving his Senegalese Democratic Party control of the national assembly, thus bringing to an end the 40-year rule of Leopold Senghor’s and Abdou Diouf’s Socialist Party.