UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein [official website] on Tuesday urged [press release] the Maldives to abide by a decades-old moratorium on the death penalty. The country has operated according to the de facto moratorium for decades, but last November brought changes to the judicial climate, halting death sentences being commuted into life sentences. There are three prisoners who are considered in imminent threat of execution. Zeid commented that “[t]he death penalty is not effective in deterring crime. Revenge must never be confused with justice, and the death penalty only serves to compound injustice.”

Capital punishment [JURIST op-ed] remains a controversial issue worldwide. Last month Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that he would approve reinstating the death penalty [JURIST report] so long as the measure had sufficient support in the Grand National Assembly. In May a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned [JURIST report] Iranian authorities for the sentencing of Nargis Mohammadi, an anti-death penalty activist. Also in May Zeid welcomed [JURIST report] the measures being taken by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to prevent the use of its drugs in state-sponsored execution by lethal injection. UN human rights experts expressed [JURIST report] grave concern earlier that month over Belarus’ death penalty practices after reports surfaced that a man was executed while his case was before the UN Human Rights Committee.