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SE Asia moves away from death penalty: OHCHR
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for Southeast Asia has launched its latest publication on capital punishment, providing a comprehensive review of global trends in the declining implementation of the death penalty
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he UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for Southeast Asia has launched its latest publication on capital punishment, providing a comprehensive review of global trends in the declining implementation of the death penalty.
The publication comes at an important juncture where Southeast Asia appears to follow global trends in 'moving away' from capital punishment while facing complex challenges. These include the application of the death penalty for drug-related crimes and pressure to return to executions after a period of moratorium.
'Fundamentally, it is a positive picture of progress and one consistent with the worldwide trend. The continuation of this trajectory should be encouraged so this region may eventually be free of capital punishment,' William Schabas said regarding the publication on Friday.
Some states, namely Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor Leste, are fully abolitionist while others, comprising Brunei Darussalam, Lao PDR and Myanmar, are abolitionist in practice. Thailand is named as a country with an unofficial moratorium in place.
Malaysia and Singapore are two countries still undertaking efforts to reduce the numbers of executions and other reforms. Meanwhile, Indonesia and Vietnam are countries still applying the death penalty whose direction seems more uncertain.
The report provides an extensive review of global trends in the application of the death penalty, a summary of the applicable international legal standards, and the current status of legislative reform related to the death penalty in the region.
The publication is based on a number of years of work of the OHCHR Regional Office for Southeast Asia. The office collaborated with the Ministry of Justice in Thailand to organize an expert seminar on 'Moving Away from the Death Penalty in South-East Asia' in Bangkok from Oct. 22 to Oct. 23, 2013.
As a follow-up to that meeting, the Indonesian representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) organized with the OHCHR its Third Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue on "The Right to Life and Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty" in Jakarta from Nov. 10 to Nov. 11, 2014.
"We hope this publication can be a resource for further discussions in the region and help to establish moratoria on the use of the death penalty and ultimately its abolition," said OHCHR Regional Office for Southeast Asia representative Matilda Bogner. (ebf)
