PETALING JAYA (Bernama): Asian countries should chart their own pathways towards abolishing the death penalty while upholding justice systems that respect the right to life and human dignity, said the International Commission Against the Death Penalty Commissioner, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Speaking at the Ending the Death Penalty in Asia conference on Monday, the former Philippine president said the death penalty does not make societies safer. On the contrary, it makes them less just.
She also described Malaysia’s 2023 move to abolish the mandatory death penalty as courageous, noting that reforms across the region showed change was possible.
"The Philippines, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan have shown that abolition is possible in our region, in our cultures and in our political systems.
"Reforms in Pakistan and Indonesia’s new Criminal Code show that change is underway,” she said.
According to Arroyo, she signed Republic Act No. 9346 on June 24 2006, prohibiting the death penalty in the Philippines.
"Millions of Filipinos live and work abroad, and some have faced the death penalty in other countries. How could our government plead for their lives while executing people at home?
"Abolition gave the Philippines consistency and credibility in defending its nationals,” she said.
The conference also heard from a 53-year-old former death-row prisoner who was convicted under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.
He was released in 2023 following Malaysia’s abolition of the death penalty, after spending 30 years in Sungai Buloh Prison.
He said the abolition of the mandatory death penalty had given him a second chance at life.
"When I was on death row, I lost nine friends to hanging,” the man said.
Meanwhile, President and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University Malaysia, Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, said efforts to reduce the death penalty in Asia must be grounded in regional research, noting that more than 40 per cent of people on death row globally are in Asia, where most executions also take place.
According to Adeeba, Lebanon’s Parliament voted in August to abolish the death penalty, making it the first Arab state to do so.
In Vietnam, the National Assembly recently reduced capital offences from 18 to 10.
Pakistan abolished the death penalty for drug offences, while Indonesia has gone 10 years without executions and introduced new Criminal Code provisions allowing 10-year probation periods for capital sentences, she added.
The one-day conference was organised by Monash University Malaysia, Eleos Justice at Monash Law, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Rashid Zulkifli Advocates and Solicitors, in partnership with the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN).
It aimed to advance a more sustained, evidence-informed regional conversation about abolition while identifying practical opportunities for legal and policy change across the Asia-Pacific.
-- BERNAMA
