Zimbabwe senate approves abolishment of death penalty

HARARE,  Zimbabwe 

The Senate of Zimbabwe has approved legislation to abolish the death penalty, a crucial step towards eliminating a law that has not been applied in nearly 20 years.

A prison officer looks out from the watchtower at Chikurubi Maximum Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, Friday Jan. 31, 2014.

On Thursday, Parliament confirmed that senators passed the bill the night before. The death penalty will be abolished once the president signs it, which is anticipated.

Zimbabwe has utilized hanging as its execution method, with the last execution taking place in 2005, partly due to a shortage of individuals willing to take on the role of executioner.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has led the country since 2017, has voiced his opposition to capital punishment, sharing his own experience of being sentenced to death during the independence war, a sentence later commuted to ten years.

He has also used his power to grant amnesties that convert death sentences to life imprisonment.

Amnesty International has urged Mnangagwa to sign the bill into law “without delay” and to commute the sentences of those on death row.

Currently, there are more than 60 prisoners awaiting execution in Zimbabwe.

According to Amnesty, approximately three-quarters of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty.

Zimbabwe is among more than a dozen African countries and over 50 globally that have the death penalty legally established without any official pause on its implementation.

In 2023, Amnesty International documented 1,153 known executions worldwide, a rise from 883 the year before, even as the number of countries executing individuals fell from 20 to 16.

The figures do not include data from North Korea, Vietnam, and China due to a lack of transparency.

Amnesty's report from October identifies China as the top executioner globally, with thousands believed to have been executed.

Iran and Saudi Arabia together accounted for nearly 90% of all executions reported by Amnesty in 2023.

The United States experienced an increase in executions, going from 18 in 2022 to 24 in 2023.

The countries with the highest execution rates last year were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the U.S.

Zimbabwe is one of four African nations, alongside Kenya, Liberia, and Ghana, that have recently taken "positive steps" toward the abolition of the death penalty, as noted by Amnesty.