RWANDA CALLS FOR END TO DEATH PENALTY

September 28, 2007: Rwanda joined other countries in appealing for a global moratorium on executions, stressing that if it could abolish the death penalty while perpetrators of the 1994 genocide still await sentencing, no country should use it.
Diplomats and human right organizations met at the United Nations to push for a global moratorium on executions with the goal of ending the death penalty altogether. Rwandan Minister for Cooperation Rosemary Museminali said that her country, which outlawed the death penalty earlier this year, should serve as a model for others. She said that even though genocide perpetrators are still around, "we still feel it is our moral obligation to preserve the right of life."
Rwanda abolished capital punishment in part to encourage European and other countries to extradite suspects in its genocide back to Rwanda. (Sources: Associated Press, 28/09/2007)