Urgent: the ACIJLP Calls upon the Kuwaiti authorities to freeze the application of death sentences and the abolition of its application and ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Cairo, 1st April 2013 

Urgent: the ACIJLP Calls upon the Kuwaiti authorities to freeze the application of death sentences and the abolition of its application and ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Professions (ACIJLP) is deeply concerned over the application of the Kuwaiti authorities the death sentence on 3 men by hanging (Pakistani, a Saudi, stateless man) on Monday 1^st April 2013.  The death penalty is executed against them in the central prison west of the capital Kuwait in the presence of judicial officials and security officials only.

The ACIJLP has raised many concerns about the return of the Kuwaiti authorities to apply the death penalty, especially since this is the first time of executing death sentence in Kuwait since 2007. The ACIJLP is concerned over the fact that application of the death penalty will be the beginning of a series of executions, especially that there are 44 persons in Kuwait sentenced to death and their sentences are not executed till now.

Moreover, the ACIJLP is concerned that Kuwait has halted executions in the last six years, and then re-activate the application of this severe penalty today, a matter which feared the ACIJLP that these executions are a message to activists and political opponents in Kuwait. This opinion is supported by the fact that many TV channels, including the formal television made a direct broadcast to the execution of the penalty from inside the central prison in the presence of the Attorney General and the Committee of the Ministries of Justice and Interior, in clear violation of the provisions of Article 53 of law No. 26 of 1962 which provides that "the death penalty may be executed only within the prison or in a hidden place ".

The ACIJLP also believes that the resumption of the Kuwaiti government to the application of the death penalty represents a breach of the Kuwaiti international commitments, particularly because it has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 21 May 1996 and entered into force in Kuwait on 21 August of the same year.

The ACIJLP points out that the Kuwaiti legislation recognizes the application of the death penalty on many crimes that do not fit in terms of seriousness of this cruel, degrading and inhuman penalty, and in spite of the accession and ratification of Kuwait to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or degrading treatment on 8^th March 1996 and the entry into force of this Convention for Kuwait on April 6 of that year.

The ACIJLP calls upon the competent Kuwaiti authorities to give consideration to respect its international commitments and conventions. The ACIJLP also demands immediate moratorium of all cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment and harmonization of its national legislation with relevant international conventions and commitments, as well as the ratification and accession to the Second Protocol on the abolition of the death penalty and to the International Covenant on Civil and political.