Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the determination by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment that detention on death row represents a form of torture.

The UK shares the view that the death penalty is wrong in all circumstances and is inherently inhumane. We call on the Government of Belarus to join the rest of Europe by abolishing the death penalty. The UK urges those states which continue to execute people to comply with the standards set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.