Equatorial Guinea abolishes the death penalty

Sep. 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, signed on Monday the repeal of the death penalty, a step that the vice president and son of the president, Teodorín, described as “historic” for the country.

The measure had been in the drawer since 2014, when the country joined the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) and promised to abolish the death penalty, as well as to end torture and extrajudicial detention by “the State organs”.

The new law 4/2022, within the Penal Code, which was announced two months before the local, legislative and presidential elections, will enter into force 90 days after its publication in the Official State Gazette.

Its Article 26 specifies that “In the application of penalties, the death penalty is totally abolished in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.”

The National Parliament of Equatorial Guinea approved the first Penal Code on August 17, thus putting an end to the Spanish regulations of 1963 that had been used in the country, according to the newspaper ‘Real Equatorial Guinea’.

Portugal initially opposed Equatorial Guinea’s accession to the CPLP for not speaking Portuguese — the Government approved in 2010 the declaration of this language as the country’s third official language — and for being a “dictatorial regime” where the “penalty of death and the violation of human rights.