A/HRC/42/25 including former British and Caribbean judges to the President and ministers. Grass-roots support was also essential, and Justice Institute Guyana also mobilized a petition against the death penalty, reaching its target for signatures very quickly with the help of taxi drivers, farmers, domestic workers and persons from all walks of life. Ms. Janki concluded by noting that advocacy could lead to results, with Guyana for the first time abstaining rather than opposing the General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2018. 23. The moderator asked Ms. M’Baye for her views on the impact on society when speech was designated as a crime entailing a death sentence, and what role the international community could play in individual cases of persons sentenced to death for conduct which should not be criminalized. He noted that Ms. M’Baye was the lawyer of Mohamed M’kheitir, a blogger who had been sentenced to death for peacefully exercising his freedom of conscience and expression, as well as of women accused of zina (adultery). Ms. M’Baye began by noting that Mauritania had had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1987, although courts continued to impose death sentences, in general for violent crimes. Mauritania had not ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and had abstained on resolutions of the General Assembly on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. 24. Ms. M’Baye presented the case of Mr. M’kheitir as illustrative of the problems of imposing death sentences for conduct that should not be criminalized. Mr. M’kheitir had been charged with blasphemy in 2013 for writing an article on his Facebook page about discrimination and the caste system in Mauritania. The case had become politicized and had exacerbated existing divisions in Mauritanian society, with protests calling for his death held every Friday. In 2015, Mr. M’kheitir had been sentenced to death and this sentence had been confirmed by a court of appeal in 2016. The Supreme Court had subsequently ordered the case to be reheard by a differently constituted court of appeal, which had sentenced him to two years in prison in 2017, a sentence he had already served. Despite this, Ms. M’Baye stated that Mr. M’kheitir was still held in a secret prison without access to his lawyers or to medical care. The authorities asserted that that secret detention was for his own protection. 25. Mauritania applied two parallel legal systems: civil law and sharia. Ms. M’Baye noted that, under sharia, when an individual repented, he or she had the right to be reintegrated into society, yet Mr. M’kheitir had benefited neither from a presidential pardon nor from reintegration. The offence of zina, which carried the death penalty, was used almost exclusively against women, and three women were currently on death row for this offence in Mauritania. 26. Ms. M’Baye concluded by stating that the death penalty was a humiliating and degrading punishment. The United Nations and civil society had a vital role to play in advocating with States that still applied the death penalty to abandon it in the name of the right to life and human dignity. The death penalty had never been anything other than revenge by judicial means, and it merely reinforced discrimination and inequalities in society. IV. Summary of the discussion 27. During the interactive phase of the panel discussion, the following delegations spoke: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil,3 Chile,4 Ecuador, Fiji, France, Greece, Iceland,5 India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand,6 Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore7 and Slovenia. The 3 4 5 6 6 On behalf of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries: Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Timor-Leste. Also on behalf of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay. Also on behalf of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. Also on behalf of Australia, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.