‘No,no, no,’ for death penalty, says Angie Motshekga

Reinstating the death penalty? No, no, no, says Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.

During Thursday’s sitting of the National Assembly, IFP MP Zandile Majozi said South Africa has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world.

“Women are killed at five times the global rate. The statistics are alarming,” she said.

“The culture of abuse and killing of women in this country has a long-standing history. It has been ingrained in the very fibre of our society. It is time to put an end to it.”

Majozi said, for this reason, the whole house must support the IFP’s motion to debate the reinstatement of the death penalty.

Motshekga didn’t agree with her about the death penalty.

“Life is sacrosanct. Only God gives life and only God can take a life. As much as I abhorred apartheid, I despise it to this day for the hanging – of taking the lives of young people in the gallows,” said Motshekga.

She said if Majozi visits the museum of the gallows at the Kgosi Mampuru prison, she would not come back saying she wants a government that can kill and hang people.

“I abhor, detest and will never in my life support any government that will take it in its hands [the right] to kill people for any reason. So, we’ll never support the death sentence for anything. It’s a no, no, no,” said Motshekga.

This follows a day after the ATM wrote to National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise and to the Presidency to ask for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

ATM president Vuyo Zungula wrote to Ramaphosa, asking him to invoke his powers in terms of Section 84 of the Constitution to introduce a referendum on the death penalty.

In Zungula’s letter to Modise, he asked that the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) be asked to hold public hearings on the reintroduction of the death penalty.

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