Press briefing note on Afganistan

Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:  Rupert Colville
Location: Geneva
Date: 10 May 2016
Subjects: Afghanistan

We regret the execution on Sunday, 8 May, of six people in Afghanistan, amid persisting serious concerns about compliance with fair trial standards, and reports about the widespread use of torture and ill-treatment as a means of extracting confessions. We fear that there could be more executions in the near future.

International law requires that the death penalty may only be carried out in line with a final judgement rendered by a competent court after a legal process with all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial, including legal representation and the right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.

The Government of Afghanistan has publicly stated that, based on its review, all fair trial rights were respected in these cases. But, the criteria and methodology used in this review have not been made public and the review lacked transparency. Given this lack of transparency and substantial concerns about compliance with fair trial rights in other cases, serious doubts about Afghanistan’s compliance with international law remain.

While we recognize the increasing security challenges faced by the authorities and growing public pressure to reduce the violence, we stress, once again, that there is no evidence to confirm that the death penalty is a stronger deterrent than other forms of punishment.

We urge the President to refrain from approving death sentences and to immediately introduce an official moratorium on the use of death penalty. We also urge the Afghan authorities to expedite legal reform, including of the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, to allow for death sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment.
ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact Rupert Colville (+41 22 917 97 67 / rcolville@ohchr.org) or Cécile Pouilly (+41 22 917 9310 / cpouilly@ohchr.org)

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