Capital punishment in Suriname
Encyclopedia
History
Since SurinameSuriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
was a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
colony until 1975, it followed Dutch law which abolished the death penalty in 1870. From 1975 to 1980, capital punishment was still on the books, but no crimes were committed heavy enough to warrant prosecution for it. From 1980 to 1987, during the military dictatorship
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
, execution was used to get rid of political opponents, most infamously on the 8th of December 1982, when 15 opponents of the military regime were executed, without trial. Wilfred Hawker
Wilfred Hawker
Wilfred Hawker was a sergeant-major in the Surinamese military who staged two unsuccessful coup d'états in 1982. Hawker was executed for his role in the plots, and he is the most recent person to have been executed by Suriname....
was executed by firing squad on 13 March 1982 for staging two coup d'etats.
Law
The death penalty is de factoDe facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
abolished by signing the treaty of San Jose in 1987, but is not abolished de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....
External links
- Capital punishment in Suriname on the Dutch version of WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
.