After 43 years without using death penalty, the President of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, is reportedly planning to execute prisoners on death row.

If this happens, it will mean that President Sirisena will single-handedly undo Sri Lanka’s enviable record of shunning this irreversible punishment in the region.

Now, when most of the world has turned its back on the death penalty – particularly for drug-related crimes - it risks heading in the wrong direction and joining a shrinking minority of states that persist with the practice.

There is no evidence that the death penalty has a deterrent against crime. Executions are never the solution and for drug-related offences, constitute a violation of international law. Sri Lanka should choose a more humane and just path.

The last execution in Sri Lanka was in 1976. 2019 cannot be the year that we see this this progress reversed.

Sign the petition speaking out against the use of on the death penalty in Sri Lanka

To President Sirisena, we call on you to:

• Stop all steps being taken to resume executions in Sri Lanka

• Commute all death sentences

• Maintain the country’s decades-long unofficial moratorium on the death penalty