People have been sitting on death row for years. President Jawara never had
 the slightest inclination to sign a death warrant, except in the case of
Mustapha Danso in 1981. What baffles Gambians, and what they find so
traumatic  is that not one, but nine death row inmates were lined up and executed.
And  why now?

There is something that is built in the Gambian pysche, our social and
cultural mindset that is anathemic to murder; to killings of any sort. Our
ingrained value systems has inbuilt social and cultural mechanisms, that  makes
these social aberations, if not uncommon, farfethched. It is only now that
murder and killing is becoming widespread and prevalent. Most of us growing
up  in Gambia can faintly recall the number of people murdered or killed
before  1981. There cannot be any justification for signing a death warrant to
kill  people who had been sentence to death, rather than to live them to
spent the  rest of their lives in prison.

The position of the group of six is valid. They want to highlight the
legality of the death sentence as enshined in the constitution. Now that it has
become a national issue,  our outrage should not only be confined to
protest, but there should also be a determined effort to guide a national
dialogue whether we want the death penalty or life imprisonment for capital
punishment. I think this is the case they are trying to make.

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