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200 kilo stone to test new hangman’s noose
The strength of the hangman’s noose which is slated to be imported will be tested with a 200 kilogramme stone, Sri Lanka Standards Institute (SLSI) Director General Dr. Siddhika Senaratne told the Sunday Times.
“The existing noose was found to be damaged and unusable,” she said. It is 12 years old and had been imported from Pakistan.
There are no Sri Lankan regulatory standards that an imported noose should comply with.
“The SLSI will have to carry out a standards test based on the regulatory standards that are followed in the country from which the noose is being imported,” Dr Senaratne said.
This week, the Prisons Department advertised for two individuals of stable mental health and between 18 and 45 years, with “an excellent moral character” to be recruited as hangmen.
They would be paid a monthly salary of Rs 36,410 based on the Public Administration Circular 03/2016.
Amnesty International’s South Asia director Biraj Patnaik condemned the advert saying it should never have been published.
“There is no place for the death penalty in a civilised society,”
Mr. Patnaik said on his official Twitter account.
The last death penalty carried out in Sri Lanka is recorded to have taken place in 1976 with the execution of J.D. Siripala, a.k.a. ‘Maru Sira’, a murder convict.
Human rights activists have now turned towards religious leaders and questioned their silence.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference opposes the death penalty and called for “stringent security measures” to prevent drug dealings in prisons.
A statement said the death penalty was impermissible according to the Gospel.
This is because it is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” who is subject to the death penalty.
This week, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called for the withdrawal of the death penalty.
President Maithripala Sirisena resurrected the idea in the context of the narcotics menace.
“The ICJ opposes the death penalty in all circumstances – as it constitutes a violation of the right to life and its imposition constitutes per se cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment,” the statement said.
It also called on the government to uphold its vote in favour of a moratorium on the use of death penalty during last year’s UN General Assembly.
The ICJ also urged Sri Lanka to sign the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obligates state parties to take measures to abolish the death penalty.
In the backdrop of condemnation, the Justice Ministry this week had sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting that a noose be imported.
The letter had emphasised that the noose must be imported from a country which has implemented the death penalty.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Singapore were some of the countries listed in the letter.