The European Union has criticized Sri Lanka's move to resume executions, saying it will send the wrong signals to the international community and investors. It said it will monitor Sri Lanka's commitments to international conventions upon which hinges a preferential trade deal with the country.
The EU, releasing a statement on Thursday said that Sri Lanka's planned executions would directly contradict the country's commitment to maintain a 43-year moratorium on death penalty at the U.N. General Assembly last year.
Sri Lanka has a lucrative market access to the EU through the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus. The concessions were withdrawn over alleged abuses immediately after a long civil war, which ended in 2009. President Maithripala Sirisena's government took steps toward reforms and commitments on human rights to secure the program back on being elected to office in 2015.
But Sirisena said this week he had signed the death warrants for four drug convicts and they would be executed soon. Sri Lanka last executed a prisoner in 1976.
"The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and a degrading punishment, and the EU unequivocally opposes its use in all circumstances and all cases," the EU statement said. "While the Sri Lankan authorities have cited the need to address drug-related offences, studies show that the death penalty fails to act as a deterrent to crime."
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