'SCRAP DEATH FOR DRUG OFFENDERS'

MANY drug smugglers are not hardened criminals but victims of poverty
and should not face the death sentence in Bahrain, says a senior
Shura Council member.

Bahrain should scrap the death penalty for drug traffickers, says
foreign, defence and national security committee chairman Dr Shaikh
Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.

He has called for the 1973 Penal Law to be amended and the death
penalty to be replaced with life imprisonment, which he believes is a
more suitable punishment.

"I am proposing this amendment for a very simple reason, the fact
that drug traffickers themselves are often victims of larger
organisations," Dr Shaikh Khalid told the GDN yesterday.

"People think the drug smugglers are evil and they know what they are
doing, but most of them actually do not know what they are doing.

"They usually come, especially to Bahrain, from developing countries
and they are from villages and know nothing about the dangers of
drugs or the penalties that follow drug trafficking."

Dr Shaikh Khalid said no-one had ever been executed in Bahrain for
drug-related offences since the law was introduced.

But he says this only strengthens his argument that it should be
removed from the statute.

"No single execution has taken place," he said.

"The law is there, but it will just spoil the name of Bahrain
internationally, especially with the human rights organisations."

Dr Shaikh Khalid said that in Islamic law the death penalty was only
given to people who deliberately kill others and he argued drug
smugglers did not have that intent.

He said the fight against drugs must be tackled through examining the
reasons why people end up in it and not merely through punitive measures.

Dr Shaikh Khalid called for more government money to be used to
educate young people against the dangers of drugs in schools and universities.

"We have harsh sentences in Bahrain, but at the same time we should
understand how we can solve the problem without creating another
negative," he said.

"Statistics have proved that in countries that carry the death
penalty for those who smuggle drugs, it is not effective.

"Data shows that drug trafficking is increasing despite the harsh
penalty (in Bahrain).

"We don't require such laws, we need laws that go well with the
international understanding, like in the Western democracies, we
should learn from them.

"Life in prison is harder than the death penalty because it is a much
better lesson and is a better deterrent."

Dr Shaikh Khalid believes there is support for the amendment among
his colleagues and the public.

His proposal will be brought up at a discussion about the country's
drug laws at the Shura Council today and, if approved, will go to
parliament for consideration.