Tonga encouraged to abolish death penalty
Nuku’alofa: “We look forward to the day when the death penalty is removed from Tonga’s laws,” said an ex-Tongan Police officer Siueli ‘Eleni Mone, who was present at Tonga’s last execution in 1982. On October 10, she joined a discussion with the Australian and New Zealand High Commissioners to Tonga who are encouraging modern states to abolish the death penalty.
Last Thursday was the 17th World Day against the Death Penalty. The Australian High Commissioner, Adrian Morrison invited guests to his residence to talk about abolishing capital punishment. The 2019 World Day Against the Death Penalty, aims at raising awareness on the rights of children whose parents have been sentenced to death or executed. Over a cup of tea, Mr Morrison, and the New Zealand High Commissioner to Tonga Tiffany Babington, met with Siueli ‘Eleni Mone, a former Police Officer who was on duty when Tonga carried out its latest execution, by hanging in 1982, and Captain Sila Siufanga of the Salvation Army, who rehabilitates deportees in Tonga. They shared their views of their respective countries, talked about the history of the death penalty, and ‘Eleni shared her memory of Tonga’s latest execution in 1982. Mr Morrison said that the last execution in Australia took place in Victoria in February 1967. Then all Jurisdictions in Australia abolished the death penalty by 1985, and later in 2010 the Federal Government passed a legislation prohibiting the reintroduction of death penalty.
Why is Australia against the death penalty?
Mr Morrison believed that the death penalty had no place in the modern world. “It is brutal, it is degrading and it is an affront to human dignity...”.
“What I would like you to take away from today is a commitment to work to remove the death penalty from Tonga’s statutes...for some of you that might seem a bridge too far, but I say to you look into your hearts, look into how you think we should behave to each other as human beings, look into what you believe is the responsibility of a state to its citizens. “If you do that, if you examine our self truly, you will see that the death penalty has no place in a modern state.”