A death sentence punishes many more people than just the person sentenced

Over the past few days I have spent a lot of time waiting to go to hearings in district courts in Indonesia, where death sentences are still regularly handed out. Outside the cell where the prisoners were waiting for their hearings, tiny little children and their mothers wait patiently in the heat, eyeing the bars anxiously.  Their vigil reminded me of the mothers, fathers, families and friends we met in Reprieve’s work and in particular, of Kari Hilde, Joshua French’s mother.

In 2010 Joshua French and his friend, Tjostolv ‘Mike’ Moland were sentenced to death for the third time, following an extremely flawed trial. They have suffered extremely poor prison conditions all through their detention but during the last few weeks riots in and out of prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo have given their families and friends cause to fear for their lives.

On 27th November Joshua French’s mother Kari Hilde sent me an email telling me that riots had started in their prison. Joshua had called her in Norway to tell her. The prisoners were trying to take control of the prison and were being fought back by police with tear gas and weapons. Joshua and Mike stayed in their cell, only coming out to help people wounded in the riots. Eventually the prison authorities completely lost control of the prison. Email updates came a number of times a day as Kari Hilde desperately tried to find people to help.  

Eventually after three days and a lot of work by the Norwegian and British Foreign Office, the DRC authorities decided to move the two prisoners to Kinshasa, where they could be closer to their embassies, a move that Joshua and Mike’s families, the Death Penalty Project and Mike’s Norwegian lawyers had been fighting for over a year. This was in some ways a huge step forwards, but it is also terrifying to think of someone you love moving to a new prison, especially in the DRC.  It is not overdramatic to say that anything could happen and, about a week ago, there was another riot. Joshua and Mike are OK but the situation is far from stable, particularly in light of their sentence.

A death sentence shatters every family and one imposed overseas, at a distance from from families, intensifies fear about prison conditions and the terrifying possibility of a snap or secretive decision to execute those under a sentence of death.  Until Joshua and Mike have their sentence commuted and are transferred back to Norway or Britain, we all will be waiting for the next crisis.