(Transcript from SBS World News)
Papua New Guinea is reviewing plans to begin executing death row prisoners after the international outrage over executions in Indonesia, including two Australians.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill backed the reintroduction of capital punishment two years ago but has now referred the issue for review.
PNG's parliament will debate the death penalty later this month, but human rights groups and N-G-Os say it's the wrong solution to a complex problem
Stefan Armbruster reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
"It was violence that was being publicly sanctioned by villages. Kepari Leniata was burned alive, in front of a whole village, and that got on to social media it create a national outcry."
Cassandra Rangip from the Leniata Legacy, a anti-gender-based violence advocacy group founded in memory of the 20-year-old mother of one's horrific death.
Kepari Leniata was accused of sorcery by the relatives of a dead boy, was tortured, bound and thrown onto a rubbish dump before being doused in petrol and set alight.
The story and pictures of her horrific death were published around the world.
Ms Rangip says it was just one of countless violent and often deadly assaults on women in PNG.
"I would describe it as a war zone, when you have the level of violence that you have, hackings, dismemberment of loibms, babies being raped. They're crimes like you have in a war zone. When you have 59 per cent of women in your country as survivors of rape and sexual assault and 2 in 3 women have experienced violence, and that's not just in their home from partners or ex-partners, but that's in the street, at work, the village, all levels of their life."
After Kepari Leniata's death in Feburary 2013, the Papua New Guinea government took the final step in reintroducing the death penalty, a process that had been underway since 2005.
That decision was reinforced in September 2013 when there was further outrage over an attack a Australian trekking party left three local porters dead.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill called for the perpetrators to be executed.
That's a move that shocked Australian human rights lawyer and patron of Australians Against Capital Punishment Stephen Keim.
"Anybody who reintroduces the death penalty, or lifts a defacto moratorium, is moving against the trend."
Stephen Keim says he's been surprised by the level of support for the re-introduction of the death penalty among PNG politicians.
"What politicians seem to do is say, the public are up in arms about this terrible event that has happened, we don't want to lose votes over it, so we'll take some simplistic short term step, which will suit us but really won't help the problem in the long term. Obviously problems with crime, problems with cultural issues, problems with drug trafficking they all require quite complex solutions, and resorting to this simplistic barbaric solution is never any help in solving the problem."
Papua New Guinea's most recent execution was under Australian colonial rule in the 1950s and capital punishment abolished just before independence in the 1970s.
It was reintroduced in 1991 for wilful murder but not acted on until after Ms Leniata's death, when an amendment added aggravated rape and robbery.
Thirteen men are on death row and were due to be executed before the end of this year, until the recent executions in Indonesia, including two Australian drug traffickers, cause international outrage, including in PNG.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill sensed the mood, reinforced by Indonesian president Joko Widodo's visit this month.
"During our discussions we informed him of our to review those clauses in our law, which will be debated in the current session of parliament and we will get some outcomes out of those debates, but of course we respect their laws and their sovereignty and we will take it on from there."
A number of PNG citizens are currently in Indonesian prisons on drug charges and could face death.
PNG law allows for executions by hanging, lethal injection, strangulation, electrocution and firing squad.
Mr O'Neill says he understands the situation facing the Indonesian leader, but he neither sought nor gave any advice about application of the death penalty.
"Ah, in very general terms, of course he's got his own challenges about drug issues in his own country and we understand the difficulties that he's going through."
But Cassandra Rangip from the Leniata Legacy has some advice for Mr O'Neill.
"Papua New Guineans are very unhappy about it, especially on the women's side of things. We don't want to respond to murder by introducing another form of murder, an institutionalised form of murder. The solution is. We are having systematic failure in the police, they have no capacity to call for help, and if you call, they will ask you to pay for their petrol."
Human rights lawyer Stephen Keim says Australia has a responsibility too.
"Australia as a signatory to the second intenaontal protocol on Political and Civil rights, is committed to doing everything it can within its power, including in its jurisdiction, to stop capital punishment. I think it should be an important part of our foreign policy in influence a move away from capital punishment, and particularly in countries where we have historical links like PNG."
When asked about the matter, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in a statement to SBS said: "Australia has stated both publicly and privately that we oppose the death penalty at home and abroad".
Mr O'Neill says it is up to PNG's parliament to debate and decide which direction to go.
"We've had no representations from anyone. It is our own initiative because Papua New Guinea is a very religious and very Christian country, so it is based principally on those foundations."
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