BENJAMIN TEMBO MAWAYA - Death Row, Zambia
I am a prisoner on death row still waiting for
my appeal to come up in the Supreme Court of Zambia. I
am married with two children. I would like to hear
the views of God fearing brothers and sisters in Christ. Those
interested should write to me on the (below) address. It
is my sincere hope that this letter will find you real good and
I hope that will put a smile on your face.
Death Penalty has definitions
which I am not able to give just now. But I happen
to indicate that death penalty is the premeditated and coldblooded
killing of humna beings by the state. Can the state exercise
no greater power over the person than that of deliberately depriving
someone of life ? (2 Timothy 3:16) "All scripture is inspired
of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting
things straight., for disciplining in righteousness". (Exodus
20:13) "You shall not murder". What is the repercussion
in the eyes of God for those who carry out executions? (Matthews 5:21)
"You heard that it was said to those of ancient times, you must not
murder. And anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.
" Therefore the state has no right to do so.
Can governments solve urgent
social or political problems by executing a few or even
a hundreds of their prisoners? Nowhere it has been
shown that the death penalty has any special power to reduce
crime or political violence. Everywhere experience shows
that execution brutalizes those involved in the process. It
is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily and it is used disproportionately
against the poor.
Is life a priviledge that may
be granted by government for good behaviour and may be
withdrawn for bad behaviour ? The universal declaration
is a pledge among nations to promote fundamental rights as
the foundation of freedom, justice and peace. The rights
it proclaims are inherent in every human being. Fundamental
human rights limits what governments can do to a woman or man
or a child. The universal declaration recognizes each
persons right to life and categorically states further that "no one
shall be subjected to torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment. In my view, I for one, death penalty violates
these rights.
Does death penalty amounts to
self defense against the Society? The death penalty,
however, is not an act of self defense against immediate threat
to life. It is a premeditated killing of a prisoner who
is already rendered helpless by the government authorities and who
could be dealt with equally by less harsh means.
Does execution constitutes torture
? There can never be a justification for torture
or for cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
The cruelty of the death penalty is evident like torture.
An execution constitutes an extreme physical and mental
assault on a person. If hanging a woman by her arms until
she experiences excrutiating pain is rightly condemned as torture,
how does one describe hanging her by the neck until she is dead
? If administering 100 volts of electricity to the most sensitive
part of a mans body evokes disgust, what is the appropriate reaction
to the administration of 2000 volts to his body in order to kill
him? If a pistol held to the head or a chemical substance
injected to cause protracted suffering are clearly instruments of
torture, how should they be identified when used to kill by shooting
r lethal injection ? Do the interpolation of a legal process
in these cruelties make their inhumanity justifiable ?
If today's penal system do not
sanction the burning of an arsonists home, the rape of
a rapist or the torture of a torturer, it is not because they
tolerate the crimes. Instead it is because societies understand
they must be built on a different set of values from those
they condemn. Why not apply these principles on capital
punishment (ECCL 8:9) "man has dominated man to his injury."
Yours faithfully,
BENJAMIN TEMBO MAWAYA
Maximum Prison
PO BOX 80915
KABWE ZAMBIA
Central Africa
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This page was
last updated October 1, 2003 Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty
This page is maintained
and updated by Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie in Toronto, Canada