FIACAT - Appuyer une ACAT sœur dans son plaidoyer abolitionniste - YouTube

I am Nodjitoloum Salomon I was president of ACAT Chad from May 2017

to 14 August 2021.

In the meantime, I was elected member of the International Board of FIACAT in June 2020,

these are the functions I have held within our organisation.

Concerning the death penalty, what recent developments have taken place in Chad?

In Chad, we have experienced a period of retention, Chad has been retentionist.

At first, the government had initiated a bill to abolish the death penalty in the penal

code, then there were attacks by the Boko Haram sect, attacks on the capital N'Djaména.

So the authorities in place quickly passed a law: Law 34 on the repression of terrorist

acts.

This law introduced the death penalty as the ultimate sanction.

At the same time, the deputies adopted the new Chadian Penal Code, which abolished the

death penalty for all crimes.

But in the transitional provisions of this new Penal Code, it was said that this Penal

Code abrogates all previous provisions to the contrary, with the exception of Law 34

on the repression of terrorist acts.

Why are you in the Central African Republic today?

This is what we had to deal with in Chad [before abolition], and we had accumulated experience,

and we would like to share this experience with our brothers and sisters in countries

that still have the death penalty, particularly countries in the Cémac sub-region such as

Cameroon and CAR, which still have the death penalty in their legislation.

So this mission allows us to make a plea to the authorities that we will meet.

To cite the example of Chad: we also went through difficulties.

Not only were there political tensions, rebellions here and there, but also the presence of terrorists.

But in spite of all this, the pressure of the international community on the government

weighed in through the pressure of civil society and we managed to get a new law enacted.

The CAR should not be an exception, our Central African brothers have just come out of a long

political and military crisis.

What are you going to plead with the authorities in the Central African Republic?

Maintaining the death penalty is not a solution because the death penalty does not deter potential

criminals, the death penalty does not repair the damage suffered by the victim's relatives.

These are the facts that we are going to bring to the attention of the Central African authorities

so that they try to review their position, abolish the death penalty and join the list

of abolitionist states.

There are already about twenty abolitionist states (in sub-Saharan Africa), there is no

reason why the Central African Republic, which has already made commitments and ratified

other international conventions, should still maintain the death penalty in its legislation.