ABIDJAN: Amnesty International on Friday urged Burkina Faso’s military junta to scrap its plan to reinstate the death penalty seven years after its abolition.
The junta’s council of ministers adopted a draft law on Thursday aimed at reinstating the punishment for crimes including high treason, terrorism and espionage.
Amnesty’s regional director Marceau Sivieude said the military must “immediately halt” its plans “regardless of the nature of the offenses or crimes committed.”
“Countries that still retain the death penalty are an isolated minority as the world continues to move away from this cruel punishment,” he told AFP in a statement.
He added that the proposal if approved would “set Burkina Faso against the goal of abolition” enshrined in international law.
The last recorded execution was in 1988, according to Amnesty.
The proposed text, which requires the approval of the transitional legislative assembly created by the junta, would also punish “the promotion and practice of homosexuality and related acts.”










