From: hrcoord@igc.apc.org (Human Rights Coordinator)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: MACAO: Death Penalty concern
Date: 11 Oct 92 14:56:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700612:000:3892
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Oct 11 07:56:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: MACAO: Death Penalty concern

/* Written 10:13 pm  Oct 10, 1992 by aiusala@igc.apc.org in igc:ai.general */
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom

DATE: 30 SEPTEMBER 1992

MACAO: MACAO FAILS TO RULE OUT THE REINSTATEMENT
OF THE DEATH PENALTY AFTER HANDOVER TO CHINA

Amnesty International is concerned that the Macao Basic Law
Drafting Committee decided on 27 September not to include in
the Macao Draft Basic Law a provision abolishing the death
penalty. As a result of the Drafting Committee's decision,
the death penalty may be reinstated when the Basic Law comes
into force in the Portuguese-administered territory, upon
its handover to China in 1999.

      The death penalty has not been used in Macao since the
19th century and is banned under the Portuguese
constitution, which applies to Macao  - but it is widely
used in China. Amnesty International has compiled reports of
over 1,065 death sentences in China in the first half of
1992 alone, and fears that the actual number of executions
was several times higher.

      Wang Shuwei, a spokesperson for the Drafting
Committee, was quoted by the Portuguese news agency Lusa on
27 September as saying that the Drafting Committee had
decided "not to mention the death penalty issue and to leave
it to the consideration of the future government" of Macao
after 1999.

      Amnesty International regrets this decision, which it
fears might facilitate the reintroduction of the death
penalty in Macao after 1999. It is urgently calling on the
Drafting Committee to reconsider its position. It is also
calling on the governments of China and Portugal to
encourage the Drafting Committee to include a provision
abolishing the death penalty in Macao.

      Amnesty International is also concerned that the
current draft of the Basic Law still contains provisions
which could gravely undermine human rights safeguards
currently enjoyed by the people of Macao. Amnesty
International is therefore reiterating its call to the
Chinese authorities to ensure that the draft Basic Law is
amended before its adoption by the National People's
Congress of the People's Republic of China, so as to ensure
that after 1999:

(1) all people in Macao will continue to benefit from the
guarantees provided by human rights treaties which Portugal
has already ratified;

(2) all people in Macao will be afforded effective
guarantees against torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment;

(3) the right to life will be guaranteed to all people in
Macao, and in particular that the current constitutional ban
on the death penalty in Macao will be maintained;

(4) all people in Macao will be guaranteed the right to a
fair trial within a reasonable time;

(5) all people in Macao will be afforded those rights which
safeguard them against being detained as prisoners of
conscience -- that is, for their non-violent,
conscientiously-held beliefs or on account of their ethnic
origin, race, colour, sex or language; and

(6) should a state of emergency be declared at any time in
Macao, all people will retain the rights which, under
internationally agreed norms, may never be curtailed, such
as the rights to life and to freedom from torture.

      Amnesty International is also calling on the
Portuguese government to formally recognize that the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
and other international human rights treaties ratified by
Portugal currently apply to Macao. Amnesty International is
urging the Chinese government to ensure that these basic
standards for human rights protection will continue to apply
in Macao after 1999, and to confirm this by ratifying the
ICCPR and other international human rights standards,
thereby also extending similar guarantees to all the people
of China.