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Misanet.com / IPS, 19 February - Human rights activists in Conakry are worried that the government's response to a wave of criminal activity in the country will lead to rights abuses across the state. Guinean officials earlier this month ended the 17-year moratorium on the death penalty. The authorities ordered four people to be executed before a firing squad at Kindia Central Prison, located about 150 kilometres from the capital, Conakry. The death penalty was suspended in Guinea in 1984 after a military coup d'etat unseated President Ahmed Sékou Touré. Touré used the firing squad to get rid of many of his political opponents. Considered a dictator, Touré came to be identified with the infamous Camp Boiro, a sinister prison where hundreds of his opponents perished. In 1971, following an attack by the Portuguese on 22 November 1970, several of the Touré administration officials were hung on a Conakry bridge. The public executions all took place after hastily administered "people's" trials. In 1975, Sékou Touré had several merchants accused of "plotting" against his regime executed. The debate on reinstating the death penalty began last week after the execution of four of five defendants sentenced to death in 1995 by the Appeals Court of Conakry. The fifth had died earlier in prison. Guinea's Minister of Justice, Attorney General Abou Camara, defended the decision to execute the men by denouncing corruption, crime, and the laxity which presently characterises the Guinean judicial system. Because of Guinea's many border conflicts, there are now so many unregistered war weapons among the general public that elaborate armed attacks are not uncommon. "We've let this go on for far too long. These evildoers murder honest citizens and all they do is go to prison. What's worse is that they get out in short order and then go and thumb their noses at the victims' families," Camara said, the day before the 5 February executions. - The law might as well not even exist for them, Camara added. "The most basic human civilities are being trampled upon. Well, all that's now in the past. From now on, it's lex talionis: an eye for an eye! All judicial decisions are going to be carried out to the letter of the law," he said. But many, including attorney Christian Sow, president of the bar association and member of the Guinean League for Human Rights (OGDH), do not share Camara's point of view. "To sentence someone to death, there's a rigorous process you have to go through. During the 1995 'gang' trials when the people executed today were sentenced, most of the 70 defendants said they had been tortured," Sow stated. According to some reports, the great majority of defendants who appeared in court during the famous trial, which was televised live, had not been caught in the act. Almost all were arrested after being anonymously denounced, or after their own companions had confessed. Like Sow, attorney Sydram Camara, who was the court-appointed lawyer for some of the 'gang trial' defendants, says he has reservations about the application of the death penalty in Guinea. "I am absolutely against the death penalty. Criminologists around the world agree that as a deterrent, it is useless as a crime-prevention tool," he told a Guinean newspaper. He added: "The 1995 death sentences do nothing to improve the country's image, especially when you bear in mind that internationally, Guinea is not seen in a very good light, especially where human rights are concerned. Executing people will appear as just another nasty aspect of the country." Sow believes that "applying the death penalty will do nothing to solve our crime problem. Human life is sacred, and we need to find other solutions". Karim Kane, secretary general of the Action Support Committee of President Lansana Conte (Cosalac) remains dubious about this theory, saying merely "serious ills call for serious remedies." Men and women on the street have expressed a mixture of relief and doubt. "If we stay the course, the gangsters, crooks and other lawbreakers are going to find themselves out of work. If the people executed today had been executed six years ago just after they were sentenced, crime wouldn't have gotten as out of hand as it has these past few years," said Ramatoulaye Sylla, an executive secretary. Oumar Camara, a computer scientist, is less certain. "I'm not against the fact that they were executed. Only, why now? They were in prison for six years and had plenty of time to think about what they had done. They should've been given another chance, and we should be tougher with the ones who are out killing now." The present Guinean penal code does include a capital punishment provision. Article 14 states that "those sentenced to death will be shot. If a woman sentenced to death is known to be pregnant, she may give birth and her sentence may be postponed for up to one year if the child lives that long." By Saliou Samb, IPS
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