SIERRA LEONE: ACTIVISTS WILL ACCEPT ONLY FULL ABOLITION

Sierra Leonean rights activists served notice to the government that they will campaign against any attempt to retain the death penalty in the new constitution and insist the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are fully adopted. "It is not enough to restrict the death penalty to cases of murder or aggravated robbery," Brima Sheriff, Amnesty International's director in Sierra Leone, told IPS. "The death penalty must be abolished in its entirety because it has never been proven to be a deterrent. Its maintenance on the statute books violates the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)." John Caulker of the rights monitoring group Forum of Conscience agreed. Nothing less than full death penalty abolition was acceptable to activists, he told IPS. "The government says it is committed to the implementation of the TRC's recommendations yet it is backtracking on one key issue, the abolition of the death penalty. "The time is now to mount our campaign … mobilising abolitionist campaigners and civil society to continue this campaign. The constitutional review commission must be made to understand."