Cape Town: During a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, the South African government asked that countries, where the death penalty is still in place, put a moratorium on the practice of killing a person as a punishment for crimes committed.
Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Candith Mashego-Dlamini described the death penalty as an "inhumane, cruel and degrading punishment".
Mashego-Dlamini was speaking during a panel discussion on the death penalty during the 52nd session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council that began on February 28 and ends on March 2.
In South Africa, the death penalty was repealed in 1995, following a five-year moratorium imposed by the apartheid government in February 1990.
"During the apartheid regime, an average of 100 people were executed between 1960 and 1989," said Mashego-Dlamini.
Based on the global increase in countries abolishing the death penalty, Mashego-Dlamini encouraged countries that have not yet shelved it, to put a moratorium on it.
#SAatHRC | Statement by Deputy Minister Mashego-Dlamini during the Biennial High-level Panel Discussion on the Death Penalty currently being held in Geneva, Switzerland, 28/02/23. @SAfrPMUN_Geneva @UbuntuRadioZA @GovernmentZA pic.twitter.com/Cfvd9ZBKtP
— DIRCO South Africa (@DIRCO_ZA) February 28, 2023
"South Africa supports and encourages global trends to end the death penalty," she said.
Mashego-Dlamini quoted the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu that capital punishment is used "against the poor, racial and ethnic minorities" and that it is often used as an instrument of political oppression to enforce it arbitrarily.
Meanwhile, various individuals and organisations as well as political parties have previously lobbied for the re-introduction of the death penalty.
The African Transformation Movement has previously pushed for this, saying it will deal with heinous crimes afflicting the country.
ActionSA president, Herman Mashaba said he, too, believes that South Africa is in desperate need of the death penalty for rape and murder convicts.
Initially sentenced to death for SACP leader, Chris Hani's murder, Janusz Waluś had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Waluś was refused parole four times, before the Constitutional Court ordered his release on parole last November. He was released on December 7.
Families of those who were brutally killed or injured in farm attacks previously told AfriForum that the death penalty should be brought back “because prison sentences apparently do not deter the killers”.
Claudine van Wyk, from Tshwane, who was one of them, said her father Sarel Janse van Rensburg was murdered in 2014 on his farm near Tonteldoos.
In 2012, her uncle, Johan and his wife, Gloudien van Rensburg, were also brutally attacked on their farm in the Baltimore area.
Van Wyk said people affected by farm murders and attacks have lasting emotional, physical and financial damage.
"You never get over it. My life fell apart. You can't get the images of your loved ones' blood out of your head."
Weekend Argus