Human rights chief: Islamists behind death penalty abolition failure in Algeria

Chairman of the National Consultative Commission for Human Rights Promotion and Protection Mustapha Faruk Ksentini Tuesday said there is religious opposition in Algeria to death penalty.

“Algeria is one of the countries which reject death penalty as part of the modernization of its penal laws,” Ksentini said in a conference in Algiers.

“Algeria plans to reduce legal articles about death penalty and maintain it only in voluntary killing,” he added.

He believes that death penalty is in contradiction with the principle of the right to live.

Algerian justice minister’s representative Mokhtar Lakhdari said the ministry attended the conference about death penalty without taking any position.

“The ministry is here not to stand by those who are for or against death penalty abolition. It is about opening a deepen debate about this issue,” he said.

He added that Algeria’s laws have not stipulated death penalty since it was frozen in 1993.

Representative of the UN human rights high commissioner Mouna Rachmaoui said Algeria is among the countries which want to modernize its legislation in accordance to the right to live.