DUSHANBE, October 19, 2010, Asia-Plus – The issue of fully abolishing death penalty in Tajikistan will be solved positively in the near future, Jumakhon Davlatov, State Adviser to the President for Legal Policy also head of the Death Penalty Group, announced at a roundtable in Dushanbe on October 18.
Organized by the Center for Strategic Studies under President of Tajikistan with the assistance from the Embassy of France in Dushanbe and other European diplomatic missions (the European Union Delegation to Tajikistan, the Embassies of Germany and the United Kingdom in Dushanbe), the Swiss Office for Cooperation in Tajikistan and the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, the meeting was dedicated to World and European Day against Death Penalty.
Speaking at the meeting, Davlatov noted that the death penalty has not been applied in Tajikistan since 2004 as moratorium was imposed on it. “We have conducted a number of surveys to find out population’s opinion on the abolition of death penalty. 60 percent of those surveyed oppose the abolition of the death penalty and we should change the population’s opinion,” he noted.
According to Davlatov, Tajikistan does not have institutions for holding persons sentenced to life imprisonment and the country’s budget for 2011 has not earmarked funds for construction of such institutions. “We have urgent needs in a modern institution for holding prisoners serving life terms for more than 200 seats,” said the state adviser, “We have not applied the death penalty since 2004, while the number of persons sentenced to life in prison is increasing from year to year.”
Ms. Nigina Bahriyeva, the chairperson of the Nota Bene public association, noted that there were many issues to be solved after the law on the abolition of the death penalty was adopted. “Among them are declassification of secrecy of places of burial of those executed under the death penalty and statistical data for the previous years,” said Bahriyeva, “It is very difficult issue and we might have to declassify the secrecy of the data since 1924. But these are standards and guarantees Tajikistan took upon itself while joining the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Human Rights.”
In the meantime, Abdunabi Sattorzoda, the head of the foreign policy department with the Center for Strategic Studies, noted that Tajikistan had not to be in hurry to fully abolish the death penalty. “I think there ought to thoroughly analyze all aspects before making a decision on the fully abolition of the death penalty,” said Dr, Sattorzoda, “I am not sure that our society is ready for abolition of the death penalty.”
We will recall Tajikistan introduced a moratorium on executions and the handing down of death sentences on July 15, 2004. The country’s legislation reduced the scope of its death penalty by limiting the number of crimes punishable by death from 15 to five and revoking its use against women and minors.
The Tajik delegation stated the clear political will to fully abolish capital punishment in the future at the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw on September 30, 2009. This commitment was reinforced again in April 2010, when President Emomali Rahmon established a working group with the aim of analyzing the social and legal aspects of abolishing the death penalty in Tajikistan. Several NGOs have supported the government’s intentions in this area through the development of projects aimed at raising awareness of the issue and engaging in a dialogue on abolishing the death penalty and the general question of the right to life.
