ECPM, the UIA-IROL and 80+ International Abolitionist Organisations react to comments made by the Supreme Defence Council of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In a press release broadcast on 05 February 2024 on the 8 p.m. edition of the national television news programme (RTNC), the Supreme Defence Council asked the Supreme Commander of the FARDC and the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to lift the moratorium on executions of death row prisoners, in force since 2003, particularly those accused of treason at the front.

The signatory organisations of this press release were shocked and dismayed to hear this request read out by the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They condemn the dramatic consequences of a resumption of executions, should this proposal be implemented.

The signatory organisations point out that the application of the death penalty will have no effect on the ground apart from fuelling false and dangerous ideas that the death penalty could help put an end to the war and atrocities in the east of the DRC.

Justice and the re-establishment of the rule of law are essential pillars in the fight against impunity. The resumption of executions would mark a most regrettable step backwards, given the positive efforts made by the Congolese authorities to abolish the death penalty since the introduction of the moratorium in 2003.

Today, more than 800 people sentenced to death are held in Congolese prisons. In 2022, the courts handed down more than 163 death sentences. That same year, the country voted for the first time against the United Nations resolution calling for a universal moratorium on executions.

The fight against impunity in the face of the various episodes of instability in the East remains the authorities’ main argument. The President of the Republic has just been re-elected for a second term, while the country is in the grip of serious insecurity and instability. We, the signatories, call for the death penalty not to be instrumentalised by executions designed to create a climate of repression in this new mandate.

This step backwards would also contradict the current trend on the African continent. By 2023, 27 African states had abolished the death penalty in law. In Central Africa, only Cameroon and the DRC have not yet done so.

The signatory organisations appeal to the wisdom of the Supreme Magistrate and President of the Republic, who has made the restoration of the rule of law his hobbyhorse, with the corollary of respect for human rights, the first of which is the right to life, and the fight against impunity, to find a solution to the dysfunction of the judicial system.