The Civil Society Human Rights Advocacy Platform of Liberia has intensified its campaign to increase advocacy in support to abolish death penalty in Liberia.
Speaking during the opening of a day long regional regional consultation and public outreach to increase support for the abolition of death penalty in Liberia, the Secretary General of the Platform , Adama Dempster said there is no dignity in taking away the life of any person.
He described as inhumane and cruel treatment to take away a life of a person while enforcing another crime.
“You don’t use crime to solve crime and it is not in any way a means of solving problems “, he emphasized.
Mr. Dempster stressed that it is about time that the government put behind itself a number of things and convinced the world in order to qualify Liberia for a seat at the United Nations security council.
As part of said drive, Adama said the Abolition of death penalty by the Government will be a great boost and a key attributing factor to push its case in the wake of such global campaign.
Even though the government has made a commitment to signed such instrument by 2025, the platform, Adama stated looks forward to see the reality of such landmark achievements.
However, he indicated that Liberia needs to make progress and keep moving forward in its human rights campaign.
“Keeping the death penalty on the books and not applying it does not give any good signal about Liberia on the international stage”, he noted.
He told the gathering that death penalty has far reaching consequences re-emphasizing that putting people to death for crimes committed is irreversible.
The Civil Society Human Rights Advocacy Platform Secretary General encouraged the government to do the needful and signed the document through the national Legislature as already done by neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissue among others.
He argued that the State who is under obligation to protect the rights of the people can’t be the same one taking away precious lives that they did not give.
At the same time , he wondered why happens if you take away the life of a person and later on find out that the person was innocent of the crime, making the case of mascarriage of justice.
He named discrimination, ineffectiveness, Human Rights Violation and cost as negative issues associated with death penalty.
By discrimination, he narrated to the stakeholders that most of the people, according to records who were placed under death penalty were or are people who are under the marginalized group, while the lack of convincing evidence to warrant dealth penalty for people as issues associated with ineffectiveness.
It is also a Human rights violation to take away the life of another person and moreover, the cost associated with such is huge, Adama added.
Additionally, he pointed out that trauma is another attributing factor which has huge psychological impact on the victim and family in general.
Speaking further he pledged their committment to continue the awareness and education to the public nationwide on the need to abolish death penalty in Liberia.
” We will create the necessary awareness to educate our people and erase the negative public perception, we will recommend policies , gathered legal advise and collaborate as much as possible in order to ensure a good human rights standing with the government and the Country in general “, he added.
Also speaking at the opening session, both Kutaka D. Togbah Director , Ministry of Justice , Human Rights Department and Urais Teh Pour, Executive Director of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights shared their thoughts on the significance of abolishing death penalty in Liberia.
As for Kutaka , he expressed Government’s willingness to achieving such key milestone and informed the gathering of the government’s progress made towards such campaign.
While Mr. Pour highlighted the achievement of other Countries who have so far abolished death penalty indicating that Liberia can also do the same for the betterment of the nation and its people.
