The Council of Europe and EU called Belarus to abolish the death penalty

Belarus, was urged to introduce a moratorium on death penalty with a view to complete abolition.

In a joint statement, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Thorbjørn Jagland, and the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, said that abolition of the death penalty throughout Europe was a common objective to all member states and pointed out that no execution has taken place during the past 15 years on the territory of the Union.

Furthermore, the CoE and the EU encouraged all European states which have not yet abolished the death penalty de jure under all circumstances, to do so by ratifying the relevant protocols to the European Convention on Human Rights.

In that respect, Jagland and Ashton pointed out that Belarus was the only country in Europe which still resorted to capital punishment.

They called for a moratorium on executions in the country, while at the same time welcomed the abolitionist trend worldwide. The joint statement of the CoE and the EU, as well as its remarks about Belarus, was supported also by the acceding country Croatia, the candidate countries Turkey, FYROM, Montenegro, Iceland, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Moldova.