A/HRC/27/26 itself to continuing its efforts to completely abolish the death penalty and to considering ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In August 2011, the National Assembly of Benin had voted to abolish the death penalty; and in July 2012, Benin had acceded to the Second Optional Protocol. In December 2012, the National Assembly had repealed the death penalty provisions contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Currently, the Assembly was carrying out a revision of the Penal Code to remove all the death penalty provisions. 14. Mr. Djenontin-Agossou also said that in July 2014 Benin would be organizing the first African conference on a universal moratorium on the use of the death penalty and its abolition. He invited States to work towards abolition, noting that the death penalty did not constitute an effective solution for eradicating criminality, was not compatible with the right to life and posed unacceptable risks of judicial error. 15. Ms. Khadija Rouissi said that there was growing consensus for the abolition of the death sentence in many States in the Middle East and North Africa. However, only five countries out of 19 in the region had a de facto moratorium, and the region had the highest level of executions per capita. In addition, a large number of death row prisoners in the region were facing torture and other inhuman and cruel punishment, even in countries that maintained de facto moratoriums on the use of the death penalty. 16. With regard to the situation in Morocco, Ms. Rouissi said that, while no execution had been carried out since 1993, judges continued to impose the death penalty. In 2005, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission had been established in Morocco in order to investigate past gross human rights violations. The Commission had recommended, inter alia, that the death penalty be abolished in Morocco. Subsequently, that recommendation had received the approval of the Head of State. A new Constitution, adopted in 2011, enshrined the right to life and gave an important place to human rights. Ms. Rouissi also informed the panel that a network of parliamentarians who were against the death penalty was putting forward legislative proposals towards abolition and would continue to work towards the adoption of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That network was campaigning to support the forthcoming General Assembly resolution on a moratorium and to improve the conditions of death row prisoners. A similar network of parliamentarians had been established in Jordan. Such networks should be established in other parts of the region in order to advance the abolition of the death penalty. The death penalty was the most institutionalized attack on the right to life and abolition constituted a prelude to any serious penal reform. 17. Mr. Bloodsworth said that the capital punishment system of the United States of America was ineffective, wrong and did not work. He knew that from first-hand experience: he was the first person in the United States to have been exonerated from a capital conviction through DNA testing. He had spent 8 years, 10 months and 19 days in prison, including two years on death row, for a crime he had not committed. In 1984, he had been arrested for the murder of a young girl in the State of Maryland. Because of the shocking character of the crime, the police had been understandably eager to find the young girl’s killer and ease the community’s fear. When the police department had found two boys who had seen the suspect, the officers had drafted a composite sketch of the man they were looking for. Despite the fact that he did not fit any of the characteristics as described by the two boys, an anonymous caller had suggested his name to the police department. In a police line-up, he had been identified as the last man to be seen with the victim. Everybody in the State of Maryland had believed he was guilty. Five persons had positively identified him. Two juries had said they had the right man. In the end, that identification was proved wrong. Referring to his own experience, Mr. Bloodsworth emphasized that eyewitness misidentification was widely recognized as one of the leading causes of wrongful conviction in the United States. Since 1989, DNA evidence had been used to exonerate 6