Calls to abolish death penalty

Amnesty International Ghana has petitioned the nation's Parliament to abolish the death penalty for all crimes. It again demanded that pending the constitutional abolition of the death penalty, Parliament should replace the death sentence as punishment for any crime, with prison terms in the Criminal Code and other relevant legislation, reports the Graphic. About 150 members of Amnesty International walked to Parliament House to present their petition. Board treasurer of Amnesty International Ghana, Cynthia Adu-Darko, said they wanted lawmakers to declare that the death penalty 'is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and a degrading punishment and a violation of the right to life'. ' ... the death penalty simply does not deter crime more than imprisonment,' she said. In the petition, Amnesty International Ghana again urged Parliament to pass a resolution for the government to ratify, without reservations, the second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. It also requested the legislature to pass a resolution for the President to commute the death sentences of all death row prisoners to terms of imprisonment.