EU applauds Zimbabwe’s ‘historic step’ in abolishing the death penalty

Asks the country for one last effort: eliminate the provision that allows its restoration in the event of a state of emergency

BRUSSELS, Jan. 5 () –

The European Union this Sunday welcomed with great satisfaction the abolition of the death penalty in Zimbabwe in what it described as a “historic step” for the African country.

Zimbabwe announced last Wednesday the end of the death penalty in the country almost two decades after the southern African nation carried out its last execution. The law, approved by President Emmerson Mnangagwa after the nation’s cabinet agreed to abolish capital punishment in June, has been definitively put on hold in recent hours through a government decree.

“With this historic step, Zimbabwe joins the majority of countries in the world that have eliminated capital punishment,” the European Union says in a statement in which it asks the country for a last effort: the elimination of a provision “that “allows the temporary reintroduction of the death penalty during a state of public emergency.”

“The death penalty is incompatible with the inalienable right to life and cruel and inhuman punishment, which represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity, nor is there convincing evidence that it serves as a deterrent to crime, while judicial errors are irreversible,” reminds the EU.