Junta moves towards reinstating death penalty

Burkina Faso’s military-led government has taken a step toward reinstating the death penalty, adopting a new penal code that once again allows capital punishment for crimes including treason, terrorism and espionage, reports RFI. The reform, approved at a Council of Ministers meeting on Thursday, reverses the country’s 2018 abolition of the death penalty and forms part of a wider legal overhaul undertaken by the junta, led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré. The Bill must still pass Parliament before entering into force. Burkina Faso's Justice Minister, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, said the revisions were designed to create a justice system that responded to ‘the deep aspirations of our people’. He also argued that the absence of capital punishment had created fertile ground for insecurity, claiming that armed groups used the abolition to reassure young recruits and invoked international conventions to shield themselves in the event of arrest. Without tougher penalties, he said, ‘there are no sanctions’. Burkina Faso remains at the epicentre of jihadist violence in the Sahel. Since seizing power in 2022, the military authorities have postponed elections, dissolved the independent electoral commission and pushed through a raft of institutional changes they say are necessary to restore security. The revised penal code toughens penalties for several offences, increasing fines and making economic crimes such as embezzlement or corruption involving sums of around €7.6 m – punishable by life imprisonment. It also criminalises the ‘promotion of homosexual practices and similar acts’. The junta passed another reform in September making homosexuality illegal, the first time it has been outlawed in Burkina Faso.