Parliamentary group on death penalty resumes its work
The National Assembly's working group on the death penalty has resumed its work, BelaPAN said.
The seven-member group will hold its first meeting in January, Mikalay
Samaseyka, chairperson of the International Affairs Committee in the
House of Representatives, told reporters on Thursday.
There was
uncertainty after September's elections for the House of Representatives
and the Council of the Republic whether the group would continue to
exist.
In June 2009, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE) decided that the Belarusian parliament's special guest
status in the Assembly might be restored only after Minsk imposed a
moratorium on the death penalty.
Mr. Samaseyka, who chaired the
parliamentary working group on the death penalty, earlier said that a
moratorium could have been discussed if the April 11, 2011 Minsk subway
bombing that left 15 people dead had not occurred.
Two
25-year-old men, Dzmitry Kanavalaw and Uladzislaw Kavalyow, were
sentenced to death in the case and executed in mid-March 2012.
Belarus'
national legislature held special guest status in PACE between 1993 and
1997. The status was suspended in 1997 following a November 1996
national referendum condemned by foreign observers as undemocratic.
Shortly after that, Belarus' application to join the Council of Europe
was frozen, and it remains the only European nation that is not a member
of the organization.
Belarus is the only country in Europe and
the post-Soviet region where the death sentence remains a sentencing
option and prisoners are executed. The Belarusian authorities have
preserved the death penalty for "premeditated, aggravated murder" and 12
other peacetime offenses.
The death penalty was abolished
thrice in Belarus since 1912 but was always restored. More than 80
percent of those who took part in a 1996 national referendum reportedly
voted against abolishing it. In 2006, the government enacted an
amendment to the Criminal Code, which indicated the temporary nature of
the use of the death penalty in Belarus.
The European Union and
many international organizations have long called on Belarus to declare a
moratorium on the death penalty.
Executions in Belarus are
carried out by a gunshot to the back of the head. Neither the condemned
nor relatives are told of the scheduled date of the execution, and the
relatives are not told where the body is buried.
