Source
Death penalty, is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime he committed. The act of execution follows after the defendant is convicted.
At the moment,fifty-eight countries retain capital punishment while 103 countries have completely abolished it.No country in EU retains death penalty accept from one:Belarus.
Capital punishment is a very sensitive matter and creates a lot of controversy in various countries and states.People have different opinions on the subject and many stand on their beliefs without showing any signs of accepting matters to be discussed. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.Nevertheless,that is not the case in Belarus.The government carried out at least 4 executions in 2016.The latest public known death penalty was in 2017,when Syarhey Vostrykau, was found guilty of rapes and murders involving extreme brutality.Many people don’t believe the numbers on record and estimate that the actual number is much higher.Nonetheless,for those keeping numbers,at least 15 people have been executed since 2009.But no one is in place to know the exact number as official government documents around this topic have not been released since 2006.
The death penalty was introduced in Belarus during Soviet times and covered several crimes, such as forging money, as well as murder,rape,kidnapping etc.
2 years ago,in a shocking interview Valiantsin Stefanovic from the Viasna Human Rights Centre told BBC Outside Source: "There is a lot of secrecy around this problem.
"Sometimes it [death] happens very quickly, in two or three months after the decision of the court.
"Nobody knows what happens to the bodies, they do not give them to the relatives. The burial place is not shown.”
The Belarusian government has been under a lot of pressure the last years as the public seems to disagree with these kind of acts.Although,the majority of the people would like to see changes to the capital punishment system no intentions of modifications are set by the elected government bodies.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37642185
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Europe
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-that-still-have-the-death-penalty/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment
https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-execution-capital-punishment/28471281.html