The Zambia Independent Monitoring Team (ZIMT) urged...

The Zambia Independent Monitoring Team (ZIMT) urged the government to abolish the death penalty instead of waiting until a national consensus was reached on capital punishment. Speaking at a workshop on the death penalty organised by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, ZIMT President Alfred Zulu said that it was wrong for the government to continue using the lack of national consensus as a reason for not abolishing the death penalty. He said that Zambia lagged behind in ratifying the old-law it inherited from Britain, which has already abolished the death penalty. He said Zambia should also ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obliges states to abolish the death penalty for all crimes. "There is no need for Zambia to stick to the old fashioned forms of criminal punishment because serious crimes have not been stopped for a long time," said Zulu. He said that Zambia has about 200 criminals on the death row. Zulu also suggested that alternative sentences such as life imprisonment be used instead of the death penalty.