Amnesty International is appealing to stakeholders to throw weight behind a memorandum in support of the Private Members Bill before Parliament towards the abolition of the death penalty.

The human rights advocacy institution is of the conviction that the memorandum would facilitate the passage of the bill which it said had been long overdue.
Amnesty International made the appeal when its executive members paid a courtesy call to the Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation in his office in Accra yesterday

The Campaign and Communication Coordinator for Amnesty International Ghana, Belinda Asamanyuah, said over the years, in seeking the abolition of the penalty, it realised that constitutional reviews through a referendum would be expensive for the organisation and the country.

She further stated that through the advice of a legal team, the organisation decided to advocate for a life imprisonment sentence instead of the death penalty.

“Our strategy has changed to an advocacy approach grounded on sound legal advice which now focuses on amending the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) to abolish 96 per cent of the provisions relating to the use of the death penalty and the Ghana Armed Forces Act, 1662 (Act 105),” she said.